The Fourth Lake
by CrispyPancake
Summary: Rook Barkwater, Magda Burlix, and the Free Glades are recovering from the defining war of the Second Age of Flight. In these times of turmoil, romance is blossoming whilst unrest is brewing within the ranks of the Librarians. This is for those of you who wish to know more about Rook's life and the fate of his home following "Freeglader". M for strong sexual content (later chapters)
1. Chapter One -- Woodwolves

Rook thrashed in his covers, whimpering, coated in a sheen of cold sweat. He was in the clutches of the woodwolf nightmare. The dream was even longer and more complex than usual as the past few years had brought back more memories of his early childhood. It had started with the woodwolves for as long as Rook could recall.

He could hear their gnashing teeth and their blood-curdling howls that produced a chilling sensation in his spine every time. The malevolent sound of their brutally visceral barking was backed up with yellow eyes, swimming in pure malice. In the moonlight, their sumptuous white-as-virtue manes shimmered gracefully, starkly contrasting the woodwolves' menacing presence. The worst part of the dream was the sounds his parents made as they were unsympathetically executed before his very eyes. As an added act of cruelty, Rook was spared and left for dead. Though he never showed it on the surface, the experience had still warped his mind significantly.

But, to his dismay, there were recent additions to the woodwolf dream as of late. Uncle Tem tearfully begging them not to leave. His parents' carefree attitude. Suddenly, there was the first transition of the dream. He saw Varis Lodd, clear as day, in her element—but in the memory, Varis wasn't a war hero yet. She was only a callow youth eager for her father's approval.

A look of abject surprise marked her determined features as she heard the howls echo throughout the valley. She loaded her crossbow with a barbed quarrel coated with firenettle extract. Varis's eyes narrowed and her brows furrowed in concentration, before she assumed a crouched stance and leapt down to the forest floor below quietly. Wisps of dank fog wreathed around her, obscuring her vision. Rook could feel Varis's dolorous fear and his heart began to thump rapidly. As she crept forwards methodically, her piercing eyes darted around her lethal surroundings, frantically scanning for any sign of the accursed woodwolves amidst the foreboding darkness enshrouding the Deepwoods.

A pair of banderbears far in the distance exchanged heart-wrenching, bellowed yodels that rang solemnly across the lush landscape. A gladehawk on the prowl screeched as she swiftly dispatched her prey, a plump snowbird. The comforting percussive sound of the mating calls unique to woodwasps serenaded all of the denizens of the Deepwoods, lulling them to sleep – and carelessness, for the night was the time of the hunt. The nocturnal flora and fauna of the forests were just as numerous as the predators of the day, and were just as deadly.

In reality, this sequence of events had actually transpired. Varis Lodd—many years before she became the venerable commander of the formidable Librarian Knights—was on her treatise voyage and heard the howling of the woodwolves. She postponed her academics and bravely followed the ruckus to the murder scene and a banderbear nest, woven from gladegrass and snagwood, a traumatized lone boy within. The boy had been Rook Barkwater.

Still, the nightmare persisted. Varis continued to track the woodwolves into the darkness, blacker than woodink. Though young, she was athletic and her tactical and tracking skills were already legendary amongst the Librarians. The howls scared the blazes out of Varis, but she pressed on, driven by a desire to protect the defenseless.

As she entered into a clearing, enclosed by summerwood trees, Varis saw it. The woodwolves were long gone. She sniffed the air to no avail – she couldn't catch their scent. Instead, her senses were overwhelmed with the scene awaiting her.

To confirm the obvious, Varis knelt down to inspect some pawprints. The size and the impressions of sharp claws were distinctive to her.

"Blasted woodwolves," Rook heard her curse. Under the dim gaze of the moon, her silent tears glittered. This didn't stop her.

In front of her was a broken cart, baggage strewn everywhere. A couple, seemingly lifeless, died in each other's arms. Tears kept falling. Varis wiped them away emotionlessly to prevent them from clouding her vision. The smell of death and the ferrous stench of blood were appalling. She gagged and was shaken by a spluttering coughing fit. Varis had never seen something so terrible before.

The two victims had been savagely mauled and were almost unrecognizable. The woman might've been a slaughterer or a fourthling, but Varis couldn't tell.

Crimson blood splatters coated the surface of the cart. Their entrails had been ripped out. Varis hoped that they'd been killed beforehand.

She could stand the sight of the murders no longer. In her peripheral vision, something on the ground caught her eye.

"What's this?" wondered Varis. Massive pawprints, far larger than the woodwolves', were perfectly preserved in the dirt. "Banderbear! Young… Let's see. Female."

Varis realized the she could try to find the banderbear and communicate with her. She wished to get revenge for the killings and to ask about the whereabouts of the slaver and his woodwolves.

Once Varis had finally located the female banderbear's nest, the gentle creature was nowhere to be found. Yet, there was something strange within. A young boy, swaddled in threadbare homespun barkfleece blankets, slept peacefully on a bed of spongy barkmoss. Without another thought, she knew what she had to do.

As Varis carried Rook, they passed by the site of the attack of the woodwolves and their master, a vile slaver. The scene was grisly and she accordingly made sure Rook saw none of it. If he'd seen it, the innocent bodies of Keris and Shem torn to bits, his impressionable psyche of four years would've been shattered irreparably.

The dream then proceeded to diverge from reality, as it always did at that point. Rook disappeared from her arms and instead became a helpless spectator. The woodwolves returned and killed Varis; suddenly, the dream would transition once more, to feelings of unrelenting guilt. In this part, Rook would be in front of a water trough, hands soaked in blood. No matter how hard he scrubbed, he couldn't clean them.

After that, Rook would wake up in a cold sweat, permeating his quivering body. He would be awoken to his heart racing, hours before the rest of the world would rise from the land of dreams. Once his heart rate calmed, he would inspect his aching hands and find them to be quite bruised and bloodied. In a fit of rage, he would scream into his pillow, throw back the curtains, and look out the window.

* * *

Rook Barkwater peered through the floor-to-ceiling window of the apartment he shared with his friend, Magda Burlix. Their spacious living quarters were perched on the top floor of one of the adjoining outbuildings connected by several bridges to the New Great Library of the Free Glades – a massive circular construction built on timbered platforms of sturdy lufwood, jutting out over the sparkling blue Great Lake. Several covered walkways, arched bridges, and looming viaducts fanned out from the main structure; these paths served as overpasses across the main road to the various Librarian buildings, on dry land, that expanded into the fringes of the shadowy Ironwood Glade. Some were cavernous barracks housing hundreds of personnel; other edifices housed massive lecture halls, complex laboratories, industriously humming workshops, crowded mess halls, and vast arsenals bristling with weaponry. The campus had only been completed recently, and the assortment of constructions were certainly astonishing achievements for the Librarians; they had promptly repaired the extensively damaged Great Library after the war and had further added to its efficacy with supplemental buildings.

Across the crystal-clear waters of the Great Lake, the goldenrod-hued sun reflecting over its languid surface, Rook could see that the renovations to the Lake Landing Academy—the military school for Librarian apprentices—were coming along smoothly. Rook's post-war morning routine started with getting out of bed and going out onto the balcony to feel the crisp morning breeze on his face as the balmy summer sun rose over the water. Sometimes, he would find himself staring into the abyss that was the Great Lake.

It was common knowledge that the Great Lake had no bottom. _Perhaps, in that cold and dark abyss, my soul dwells._ _Perhaps I am too far gone, with all the blood that stains my fingers. All the killing I was a party to. Fighting for the Free Glades didn't make the killing any less painful and haunting,_ Rook thought to himself as he angrily glared at the blasted lake, an unlikely reminder of the pain he carried in his heart from his actions performed in the Freeglade Lancers during the War for the Free Glades.

Lately, Rook's thoughts had been relegated to the war and its lasting effects on the stability of his brittle sanity. He remembered another horrible experience. In one of the final battles of the war, the Battle of the Great Library, Rook lost his beloved mentor—Varis Lodd. She had valiantly led one final attack to defend the Library. Sadly, all reports concurred that her legendary skycraft, the _Windhawk_ , had crashed into an ancient ironwood tree. None could deny the heroicness of her actions.

Officially, she was deemed to be dead. Rook didn't agree with that assessment, despite the fact that her own father and brother had given up on the notion.

To others, Varis Lodd was a war hero, a martyr, a cultural symbol. To Rook, she was his savior. When Rook's parents were murdered by slavers, it was Varis who had rescued him and brought him to the Librarians. Varis, who taught him the ways of sky flight, provided him with sage council, and helped nurture his self-confidence.

Rook closed the balcony door and sat at the foot of his bed. He felt a painful lump in his throat. It was almost suffocating. Scalding tears streaked his face and his vision blurred. He remembered his recurring dream. Suddenly, Rook's body shuddered, and he was wracked with violent, keening sobs that echoed off of the walls of his bedchamber. He put his hands up to his eyes in a vain attempt to fend off the tears.

Just when he thought his crying would never end, Magda soundlessly slipped through the threshold of the door, a look of genuine concern on her face. She moved towards his bed, looking almost magical in the early morning sunlight pouring through the window.

"Rook, is it about the memorial service today? I know how important Varis was to you… and to me," Magda asked.

Rook looked up from his hands and met her gaze. Her fierce green eyes, the shade of the sytil moss that clung to the fur of banderbears, were softened by sorrow and empathy.

"Yes… I… I know that she's probably dead. But, I can't give up on her and going to the memorial would be disingenuous," he replied. "It's more about the dreams I've been having."

"What about them? The woodwolf dreams?"

"Yes. But, these past few nightmares have been slightly different. Each time I close my eyes, I see her face. When I sleep, I hear the howls of the woodwolves converging on her position and I can't do anything to stop it!"

"Can I sit?" Magda requested. Rook nodded, and she sat beside him on the bed. She put her arm around him and squeezed him tight. Rook began to cry again.

Rook spoke in a strained whisper, speaking through the tears he tried to stifle and the sobs he tried to choke back, "Some mornings, I look at the Lufwood Tower in the distance. So majestic and inviting and elegant…"

He could picture it now; the stone woodcat sentinels on either side of its main entrance, leading to a marble-floored vestibule, its floor a replica of the Quadrangle of Old Sanctaphrax. The tall structure, decorated with trestled balustrades and dotted with stained-glass mullioned windows.

Memories of his countless tea-time meetings with the wise High Master of the Lake Landing Academy, Parsimmon, and the gaunt and haunted-looking Most High Academe—the highest ranked official in all the Free Glades—Cowlquape Pentaphraxis, flooded his mind. The meetings were conducted in Cowlquape's private apartment on the top floor of the Lufwood Tower. Though his chambers were austere and sparsely furnished, the view from the windows was spectacular, offering a breath-taking look of North Lake and the faintly glowing Lullabee Island in its center.

His reverie was interrupted by Magda's sonorous and curious voice.

"Go on," she coaxed him.

"Some mornings, I just feel like hurtling myself off its top floor balcony!" Rook half-shouted through clenched teeth.

Magda took a quick intake of breath before speaking slowly and clearly.

"By Earth and Sky! Do not think like that, Rook! What would the Free Glades do without you? Open Sky forbid they have to lose you along with Varis. Would she want you to throw your life away like that? And besides, what would your friends do without you –what the blazes would _I_ do without you? You tell me this."

"It isn't so simple, Magda! Don't you see? When I look at the Tower, I think of the sweet release, the beckoning I feel for a reprieve from these blasted nightmares! I don't much care a whit for anything else in those moments."

Magda gently placed both of her delicate hands on his cheeks and wiped away Rook's tears. She got up from the bed, wet a rag in the basin in the corner, and came back to scrub off the dried tears that crisscrossed his face like so many superficial scars.

"Rook, I'm sorry. I'm here for you. Let's get out of this apartment. We won't gain anything by wallowing in despair," Magda's voice lit up and she flashed him one of her dazzling smiles that always made him and everyone else blush. "The skies are indigo; the summer sun is shining. Why, there's even a cool breeze blowing!"

"Okay," Rook grudgingly accepted.

"We'll take a cart from here to New Undertown, stop at the New Bloodoak Tavern for a spot of cloudtea and hyleberry jam on oakbread, the Mother Maris special. Afterwards, I think a stroll down the Lakeside promenade would do you wonders!"

"You've thought this through, haven't you," Rook mused.

Magda shot him back a look that would melt the stoniest of hearts. "Don't you know? I'm a spontaneous kind of girl."

* * *

After sitting on the lumpy, misshapen bed in Rook's room for a while longer, in absolute silence, Magda sat up abruptly. She took Rook's right hand in hers and pulled him off of the bed.

"Come on, get dressed and meet me in the Library's foyer when you're ready," Magda ordered, before giving him a friendly kiss on his forehead. "We have to get going or we'll miss the memorial after our walk."

"I… I can't go to the memorial," Rook cried out in mild horror.

"You _can_ and _will_ be there," she responded in her most amiable voice. And, with that, Magda left the room to get ready for the long day ahead of them.

* * *

Rook had crossed over the main road through the Blackwood Passage, a covered bridge that served as a bustling thoroughfare, connecting the campus complex to the New Great Library. The walls of the passage were adorned with intricate friezes, lovingly carved out of the finest cut, most diligently seasoned blackwood that the woodtrolls had in their underground warehouses. The entrancing decorated walls depicted all of the most common creatures inhabiting the Edge – banderbears, hirsute mountains of fur, with their yellowed tusks and razor-sharp claws; their natural enemies, the wig-wigs, orange furballs that posed a laughable threat when alone, but when in groups, could devour a banderbear in second, bones and all; rotsuckers, black as night, protruding snouts snuffling noisily; halitoads, about to let out deadly belches.

Rook spent an interminable time traversing the entire Blackwood Passage before he finally arrived in the Great Library. He walked through the magnificent chamber that housed the barkscrolls themselves, its dusty ground blanketed with stray sheets of bark parchment, marked with writings and diagrams meticulously inscribed in blackwood ink. Rook made his way to the threshold of the immense, round building. He crossed into the Great Library's foyer.

The first sight that greeted visitors to the Great Library—once they'd gone through its towering leadwood doors—was an imposing wooden statue of the High Librarian, Fenbrus Lodd, which presided over the vestibule – painstakingly carved by the talented woodtroll master, Oakley Gruffbark. The original statue had burned down in the conflagration that had destroyed the first Great Library of the Free Glades. During the rebuilding efforts, the woodtroll had created another statue – larger and more detailed than the one before it.

Once Rooked had reached the meeting place he'd set with Magda, he opened his trusty barkpaper sketchpad and produced a writing implement from his trousers. He began to draw Varis Lodd, bedecked in her flight-suit, a look of cold resolve defining her serious countenance. As in life, her custom-built crossbow was loaded and at the ready by her side. In the background, he added her magnificent sumpwood skycraft, the _Windhawk_ , into the picture. This sketch was a replication of Varis in his nightmare he'd just had. Drawing the _Windhawk_ stirred painful memories of his own destroyed skycraft, his beloved _Stormhornet_ , blown up accidentally by Vox Verlix over Screetown.

In turn, this made Rook recall how everyone thought him dead after that crash and had given up hope—everyone, all except for Magda. During the War for the Free Glades, Magda was also shot down, this time over the Eastern Roost. He shamefully remembered how easily he had believed she was dead.

After the crash, while severely wounded and with a badly broken leg, Magda limped through the treacherous Deepwoods alone. She dragged her skycraft behind her, from the Eastern Roost to the Free Glades. Rook was still in awe with her level of dedication to the cause of the Librarian Knights. It filled him with a sense of pride.

Rook was dressed in a loose-fitting orange tunic and moss-green silk pantaloons, the same hue as Magda's irises. It was simple attire, but comfortable and perfect for the summer weather.

Rook was a handsome youth of eighteen years, lithe but with ripples of muscle in his arms and strong trunk-like legs due to his service in the Freeglade Lancers. His hair, jet-black, with eyes the color of polished sapphires. They were serious but, at the same time, strangely genial eyes.

He didn't mind waiting for Magda. After all, it gave him a chance to sketch what was on his mind. The skills he picked up creating the diagrams in his treatise, _An Eyewitness Account of the Mythical Convocation of Banderbears_ , were too important to his sense of self for him to let go to waste so he resolved to cope with daily life through art.

Rook flipped through the sketchbook. All of the drawings were of people, usually of people who were dear to him. Vague scratchings of the half-remembered faces of his dead parents and portraits of his friends: Magda, Xanth, Felix, Stob, to name a few. The most common subjects for his sketches were Magda and Varis. With that thought, Rook realized how many people cared for him and would be devastated if he were to die.

After looking through the sketchbook a second time, Magda appeared. She was resplendent in a magenta kurta, inlaid with gold filigree, and accompanied by a plunging neckline. Below, she wore velvety indigo leggings. As was the style at the time, Magda's curly ringlets were arranged into four thick plaits of straw-blond hair, inspired by the way Varis Lodd wore hers.

Her appearance was almost a spitting-image of Varis – how she must have looked at the age of twenty. He felt a heavy weight in his heart, but just as soon as he felt it, it was already gone. Rook couldn't deny that Magda looked impossibly beautiful. Even though they were just friends, her breathtaking prettiness was not lost on him. It was more than her physique – it was mainly her courage and determination that drew Rook's eye. All of his observations and contemplations took place in the span of perhaps five seconds. Once Magda spotted Rook, she walked over to him, a look of slight inquisitiveness on her face.

"I'm sorry I made you wait so long. Getting my tangled hair to resemble Varis's was such a pain. Let's catch a cart to the New Bloodoak," she said.

"Will we find a cart going to New Undertown at this early hour?" Rook asked. He looked around him at the deserted Great Library.

"Yes, they're always making supply runs. The route is constantly in use, no matter the hour," Magda responded confidently.

"Lead the way."

"Gladly."

The pair of them left the foyer, strode off of the massive wooden platform that housed the Great Library, and proceeded towards the vast cart stables located adjacent to the building, on dry land. At the end of the row of stables was a mean but functional cart drawn by two ancient-looking hammelhorns. A slaughterer lass was replacing one of the wheels when Rook and Magda approached her. She soundlessly toiled away on the wheel without looking up at them. Rook inhaled the earthy smells of the Free Glades as motherly sunshine dappled down to the forest floor, filtered through the treillage of branches above him. His senses brought back memories of his parents and the long treks they'd used to go on when he was a young'un. After five minutes of waiting, the cartwheel was replaced and the lass finally looked up from her work. Her face cracked into a wry smile when she realized it was Magda.

"Magda, how're you doing? And up at this hour?" the lass inquired.

"I'm fine, Tanis. I have someone I'd like you to meet. I know I always talk to you about him and I feel this is as good as any a time to make an introduction," Magda replied.

Magda beckoned Rook closer and gestured towards him.

"Tanis, this rascal over here is the famed Rook Barkwater."

Rook shot out his hand and Tanis clasped it and shook it firmly. Her grip was surprisingly strong.

"Hi, I'm Rook," he said.

"Charmed," Tanis grinned. Looking to Magda, she continued. "Magda, you never told me he was this dashing! Though I sense sadness in him."

"Tanis!" Magda reprimanded unseriously.

"Sorry, Magda, he's just so good-looking. Sky Above!"

At this point, Rook was blushing profusely, so much so that his face almost matched the color of Tanis's. He suddenly became desperate to return to the comfortable apartment and stare wistfully out of the windows.

"Tanis, Rook and I need to get to the New Bloodoak Tavern in time for breakfast and a walk before Varis Lodd's memorial ceremony. You know, where we're going to unveil the new marble statue of her that Xanth Filatine chiseled?" Magda proceeded, the previous exchange already forgotten.

"That'll be fifty gladers. No receipts or refunds available," Tanis japed.

Wartime provisions had just been repealed by the Freeglades Council, reinstituting the usage of currency for the exchange of goods and services.

"Tanis, while we're still young. Skip the jokes and let's go!" Magda retorted.

"Relax, I was just kidding," Tanis replied bashfully. "I can take you there, but first I have to drop some supplies off at Lake Landing."

Magda sighed in annoyance.

"Don't worry, you won't be late. Qarne and Marne look old, but they're not slow by any means," Tanis explained. "Hop in the back and we'll set out forthwith."

Rook and Magda moved some provisions out of the way so that he could mount up in the back of the cart. The pair sat down heavily—Rook in the cargo bed and Magda beside Tanis—as Tanis took the reins and prepared to set off.

"Everyone aboard?" Tanis vacuously asked.

"Clearly," the pair replied in unison as their short journey towards the town began. The ride was rickety, but Rook was too preoccupied with his broken heart to notice this. Solace still eluded him.

Yet, Magda's optimistic words came back to him, reminding him that a positive attitude could change the course of the day. Rook knew that his negative thoughts were mostly within his power to control. It was easier said than done, however.

But, as Magda had said before, the weather was particularly pleasant at the moment. His father had once told him that the key to happiness was sunshine and pickled tripweed. Unfortunately, Rook absolutely abhorred pickled tripweed – like his mother, grandfather, and so on.

"Magda…," Rook said. "How are _you_ feeling today?"

"To be completely honest, I'm feeling hopeful," responded Magda, transfixed by the morning sun peeking between the treetops of ironwood pines.


	2. Chapter Two -- The Cart Ride

The cart trundled along the new dirt avenue. It was officially known as the Great Lake Ring Road; however, most Freegladers simply called it Pine Path in reference to the famous southern stretch that wound its way through the Ironwood Stands, blanketed in a spongy bed of spicy woodchips and fragrant pine needles.

It was this stretch that the New Great Library and the Librarian campus opened out to. The cart would turn east after exiting the stables, then it would go north, through the Woodtroll Timber Yards. On the way north to New Undertown, the cart would make a slight westward detour to the Lake Landing Academy. Once the supplies were unloaded, the cart would continue to town and deposit them at the tavern.

On barkpaper, it sounded like a long voyage. But, in practice, especially in the hands of a veteran cart-driver, the trip wouldn't take more than fifteen minutes. The Pine Path and the other roads in the Free Glades were empty due to the early hour, so traffic wouldn't be an issue.

As the rickety cart meandered through the Ironwood Glade, Magda looked straight ahead and gossiped with Tanis. The news at the time was that their friend, Xanth, the artist behind the memorial statue, had found a lover. Zetta was her name. The two lasses discussed her appearance, namely the fact that most Freegladers considered her to be the most gorgeous girl in all the Edgeworld. While Rook eavesdropped, he resolved to meet this Zetta for himself, if only out of curiosity.

Rook was listening, but not really listening. He was thinking about the future. When the War for the Free Glades had ended, Rook took stress leave from the Freeglade Lancers and hung up his green-and-white checkerboard scarf in his wardrobe. The rest of his armor and weaponry were stored inside one of the storehouses contained in a massive ironwood pine named _Scartree_.

 _Will I ever return to the fold and pick up my lance again? Chinquix must be missing me,_ Rook wondered and felt shame at what he felt was an abdication of his duties. He also felt guilty for deciding to take leave without considering the feelings of his prowlgrin mount, Chinquix.

A lancer's two best friends are his mount and his lance. His prowlgrin had brown spots upon white fur and a brown mane, with beautiful blue eyes.

Rook remembered how much his mount loved having its paws rubbed with darkelm oil and how he used to make tiny sneezes constantly in autumn. But Chinquix, like most prowlgrins, loved having his chin tickled the most.

Prowlgrins were first and foremost loyal beasts. Possessing huge mouths, their bite was effective in battle. They had eyes offset from their mouths and flared nostrils on their foreheads. Though shaped like furry wrecking balls, they gracefully jumped from tree to tree on instinct alone. On the ground, they were still formidably cantankerous and deadly.

As the cart rolled through the Woodtroll Timber Yards, Rook's mind cleared and became a sanctuary, a place quieted of all thoughts. It was a trick taught to him by Varis, a temporary mental exercise to help manage pain from combat injuries in the heat of battle.

In his forced state of tranquility, Rook noticed that he kept stealing glances at Magda. The breeze ruffled her hair and her giggle echoed in Rook's mind. It was a nice giggle, Rook felt.

After a few minutes, the trio reached the Lake Landing Academy. The cart was met with some fresh-faced Librarian apprentices, busy rubbing sleep from their eyes, all new recruits from the Goblin Nations.

"Mistress Tanis? We'll take the cargo. Your fee," the leader, a burly flathead goblin youth, said officiously. From his pocket, he withdrew a velvet pouch filled with fifty gladers worth of coins. "Give us ten minutes and we'll have it all unloaded and you can be on your merry way."

"Make it five," Tanis replied primly. The flathead's face grew flushed with anger, but he said nothing and ordered the apprentices to get a move on.

* * *

The apprentices took seven minutes. As the cart left Lake Landing, the hills of the Eastern Farmlands stretched into the distance in undulation before terminating at the iconic skyline of New Undertown. As the trio continued their journey towards the town, Rook gazed at the Cloddertrog Caves to their east and the mysterious, thorn-shrouded Waif Glen to their west.

The trio was silent as the cart entered New Undertown. The place was deserted, as the citizens of the settlement were still slumbering peacefully in their beds. They passed by the Goblin Quarter, its longhouses strewn with colorful paper lanterns. Across the main road from the longhouses were the conical Hive Huts, providing free lodgings to travelers on a budget.

The cart's wheels clattered on the cobblestone pavement. The sun beat down on Rook's skin. His sweaty tunic stuck to his chest, gradually drying in the breeze. His head pounded and his mouth felt impossibly dry. Rook closed his eyes for a second. He caught a glimpse of Varis in the darkness, so he closed his eyes again. There she was, waiting for him. Then he heard the woodwolves howling followed by their savage barks.

Rook felt someone tugging his sleeve and woke with a start. "What is it?" he murmured irritably.

"Get up, Rook, we're here. We've reached the tavern," Magda sighed.

Magda and Rook bid farewell to the likeable slaughterer girl, Tanis, and her tireless hammelhorns, Qarne and Marne.

In front of them stood the impressive façade of the New Bloodoak Tavern, decorated with the same paper lanterns they had seen in the Goblin Quarter earlier. Gilda had once told him that they were part of a mourning tradition practiced by webfoot goblins.

The pair could feel the stuffy heat escaping through the cracks of the entrance. By the door—obviously fashioned from bloodoak—was a traditional painted sign. Together, Magda and Rook glanced at the sign as one; the oil painting was a startlingly-accurate portrayal of the terrible bloodoak, the most feared of all trees. In symbiosis with the tarry-vine, the flesh-rending bloodoak would use the vines to dangle its prey above its gargantuan maw before dropping the unfortunate specimen into its fetid mouth. This was accompanied by a sickening _crunch_!

But, now was not the time for them to contemplate the voracious appetite of a tree with a spooky moniker – their _own_ hunger needed to be sated at that moment. Like the bloodoak, or even a logworm,

Rook felt as if he could swallow a hammelhorn whole; a feat that his friend, Stob, had attempted and failed plenty of times, in the company of slaughterers at their camp to the south. _He'd love Tanis_ , Rook thought.


	3. Chapter Three -- The New Bloodoak Tavern

Hand in hand, Rook and Magda entered the rowdy and boisterous New Bloodoak Tavern, half-filled with regular patrons, deep in their cups, easily identifiable by their ruddy noses. The pair found a relatively quiet booth in a dark corner, Rook's favorite seat in the house. The two sat down and both ordered the usual; hyleberry jam on oakbread, with a rasher of tilder bacon on the side, accompanied with a kettle of their favorite drink, cloudtea with a few drops of winesap for sweetening.

The New Bloodoak Tavern was the most popular establishment in the entire Free Glades, serving as both a multistoried inn and a bar at the same time. As a result, the place was always busy and the din was deafening. There were several booths and barstools but the most popular seats were by the wine fountains and troughs, filled entirely with thick and frothy woodale. Patrons would dunk their mugs in them and drink until they fell asleep and had to be woken or thrown out. The regulars used bowls instead of mugs. When Rook smelled the food coming, his mouth watered and his stomach grumbled noisily.

"I'm so damned hungry, Rook!" Magda exclaimed.

"Me too," Rook replied, a ravenous expression lining his handsome face. Magda reached out to Rook to stroke his beard.

"You should shave it off, if you ask me."

"I didn't ask you," Rook said as he let out a lighthearted laugh, his mouth opening slightly to form a gleaming half-smile.

"I don't like it. It makes you look old, no offense."

"I didn't know you paid such attention to my appearance."

"Don't play dumb, I felt you staring at me during the ride over."

Rook blushed and issued an unconvincing denial, shaking his head too frequently. He let out an uncomfortable giggle.

"Hey, what's the hold-up with the blasted food?" Rook asked, in a desperate attempt to change the subject.

"Relax, I was just giving you a hard time. Take out some coins and the splinters you carry around with you."

"You want to play a game of Splinters _now_?"

"Why not now? Are you just frightened that I'll beat you? Rook Barkwater, savior of the entire Edge three times over, scared of being beaten by a girl in a silly game!" Magda chided.

Slightly embarrassed but mollified, Rook agreed to a few hands of the new game, Splinters, invented by Deadbolt Vulpoon and the Armada of the Dead, who kindly brought it to the Free Glades. Rook was a bit worried, but only because Magda was a notoriously good player. As expected, she thrashed him mercilessly and she emptied his coin purse.

"I'll spend these gladers on some materials. I've already got this design for this epic dress all sorted, inspired by one of your sketches," Magda chattered excitedly.

"You looked through my sketchbook? Without asking?" Rook whispered timidly.

"Yeah, I wanted to see if looking through your art would help me understand your nightmares better. I didn't think you'd mind. The sketches are very good and the ones of me are so accurate."

"Would you like me snooping through your journal, huh? You could've just asked me more about the dreams, Magda. But, I know you were just protecting me."

"Something like that…"

Magda was interrupted by the server. She was Gilda, a gnokgoblin girl that Rook had been trapped with, in a misery hole, back in Old Undertown. Gilda looked vibrant and happy, which was a huge change from when they'd first met. She was no longer scared or vulnerable, but independent and powerful.

"Here's the usual, a kettle of cloudtea, sweetened with golden winesap. Then there's the oakbread with hyleberry jam, side of tilder bacon. The syrup bottle is on the side, like I know you two prefer," Gilda listed enthusiastically.

"Thank you, Gilda," Rook and Magda said in unison, provoking drunken laughter and applause that rippled throughout the tavern.

When Gilda left them alone, the pair dug in to their hearty if unhealthy meal. The food was piping hot, so it tasted even better. The cloudtea was too scalding to drink yet. The hyleberry jam emitted a sweet, peppery odor that reminded Rook of his grandfather, Captain Twig. Once they finished their toast, it was time for the tilder bacon. The tilder bacon was fried in hammelhorn fat and was delectably crispy. Rook and Magda unstoppered the syrup bottle, made from sugarpine resin, and liberally doused it on the bacon, unabashed looks of delight on their faces. They ate quickly and quietly—the rush from the bark-sugar made their heads spin.

Once the cloudtea had sufficiently cooled down, Rook and Magda began to converse while gradually draining the kettle. First, Magda filled him in with all of the gossip she had exchanged with Tanis during the cart ride into town. Over time, the conversation diverged to her family.

"As you know, my parents, Ned and Ada, are busy rebuilding the shop following the attack on New Undertown during the war. A blasted glade-eater, the one with Hemuel Spume at the helm, took out the entire bottom floor. Our house upstairs still needs repairs, too. Hell, the entire district could use some fixing up!"

She was right, of course. The town had received a walloping so severe, it was a miracle that any building was still standing. No building was left unscathed in the war.

 _Glade-eaters_ , Rook thought darkly. _I wish I could've strangled the life out of Spume myself. His bloody son escaped me, but I'll find him one day and kill him._

Hemuel Spume, the foreman of the evil Foundry Glades, practiced slave labor and commissioned the construction of a phalanx of glade-eaters, weapons of mass destruction, tracked vehicles, bristling with armaments, bringing only death and suffering to the forests, the fields, and New Undertown itself. Rook had watched Spume die as his personal glade-eater lost control and plunged into North Lake. The memory of the ravaging of the Burlix's herbalism shop filled Rook's heart with a black rage, directed at a dead man.

Rook's thoughts were interrupted as Magda resumed speaking.

"Rook, we need your help rebuilding. After our walk and the memorial, we should swing by the shop so that you can survey the scene for yourself."

"I don't know the first thing about repairing damaged buildings, Magda. Why me?"

"Because Xanth is too busy with his duties and you carved your own skycraft, so you'll be able to manage. Just trust me on this. It would mean a lot if you could give us a helping hand."

Their friend, Xanth Filatine, had resigned from his post in the Librarian Knights following the war. For a while, he had produced marble statues of important figures until the High Master of the Lake Landing Academy had approached him. Parsimmon needed a protégé and Xanth was perfect for the job.

"I guess I could at least check it out, but no promises. I'll have to think about it," Rook offered. It would have to do for the time being. He had a selfish thought for a fleeting moment— _if the shop gets repaired, Magda'll move back home, away from me_ —in a flash, it was gone. He would convince her to stay, Rook decided.

"Think about my siblings. Cade is crippled and relies on Esme for everything, all of the time. With the shop so damaged, her job is that much harder and Cade's quality of life is truly suffering as a result. I know you'll do the right thing," she said hopefully, her expressive eyes locking with his in a silent exchange. He got the message: _I'm counting on you_.

"You're right. I'll help."

Ned and Ada Burlix were masters of herbalism who, before the exodus, had jointly held the position of head healer back in the sewers of Old Undertown. When the dark maelstrom of Vox Verlix's creation rolled in from Open Sky, Magda's family had fled in the exodus to start a new life in the verdant Free Glades, and a small business too. Cade was her younger brother, afflicted with an unknown disease that mystified his own parents, leaving his limbs limp and lifeless. Magda's three older brothers were killed in the shop attack.

Cade required the constant care of his twin sister, Esme, to function normally. He couldn't walk so he relied on a floating sumpwood bench, dangling ironwood weights dragging against the ground. Thinking of Cade saddened Rook. Nevertheless, Rook liked him well enough and they had exchanged plenty of jokes over the years.

"Thank you so much!" Magda gratefully responded. Then, she got up and kissed Rook three times on his cheek, saying 'thank you' each time.

Blushing profusely, Rook sat motionless until Magda sat down again.

"Sorry about that. I'm just so relieved is all. Perhaps it's the cloudtea. I'm starting to feel a buzz. It'll definitely lift our spirits; wouldn't you say?"

"I feel it, too."

Cloudtea was a recent addition to the Free Glades, found quite accidentally by Rook during a scouting mission. Dotting the shores of New Lake, cloudtea was famed for its psychoactive properties when consumed. Pleasant, mild hallucinations, unending euphoria, uncontrollable laughter, lowered inhibition, and pain relief, just the kind of thing for the somber day ahead. The state of being under the influence of the special beverage was colloquially referred to as being skyfired.

Their eyes reddened and their pupils dilated as a result of their blissful intoxication. In Rook's vision, Magda seemed to shimmer and glow, like the horizon on a hot day. She looked ethereal, sitting there with him at the tavern, supremely high.

"What?" Magda giggled. "You're staring, Rook. What's up?"

"Oh, I didn't realize. No… It's just… I'm really skyfired right now," he slurred.

"You don't say," said Magda mischievously, followed by a wink.

"Refill?"

"Sure."

Rook lifted the cloudtea kettle and went to fill their cups. He looked puzzled. "Confound it, empty!" Rook decided he was buzzed enough and didn't need another kettle of the hallucinogenic cloudtea. "Let's go for that walk."

Magda slurred her speech as she shakily beckoned to Gilda to send over the bill. Rook and her split it, left a hefty tip, and departed the establishment, into the bustling throng of melancholy citizens.

Stopping at the neighboring greenhouse, nestled between the hulking behemoth that was the New Bloodoak and a tumbledown abattoir, Rook purchased two circlet wreaths of scarlet and azure gladegeraniums. With a beaming grin, Rook placed the garland upon Magda's brilliantly braided flowing locks and she followed suit, as was the Freeglader custom amongst dear friends – or lovers. Arm in arm, the crowned couple scurried towards the Lakeside promenade, determined to finish their walk before the dear Varis's memorial.


	4. Chapter Four -- Open Sky

After finishing their breakfast and their game of Splinters, the skyfired pair headed southwest from the New Bloodoak Tavern. In step with each other, Magda and Rook proceeded to their destination, the Lakeside promenade.

The day was shaping up to be pleasant, Rook thought, despite the somber mood hanging over the Free Glades. Looking up from the cobbles, Rook observed that the sky was pure cerulean, cloudless but for the flocks of reed herons flitting over North Lake. Remnants of the sunrise's watercolor puddles streaked the horizon in ropes of pink and orange light, producing luminous lacerations in the bedsheet of blue above them.

Turning the corner, occupied by an apothecary much like the one owned by the Burlix family, Magda and Rook arrived at the waterside avenue known simply as Lakeside. One side was furnished with an ornate copperwood balustrade, to provide promenading citizens with places to rest their arms as they gazed lovingly at their lake and a cushion for unruly drunkards, to prevent any unfortunate drowning incidents. On the other side of the walkway was a series of planters bordered by intricate whorls of latticed metalwork. Behind these extravagant barriers were lines of evenly spaced snowbeech surrounded by luxuriant tufts of herbgrass, transplants sourced from the Garden of Thoughts, nestled deep within the mysterious and exclusive Waif Glen.

Down the center of the promenade were rows of lavish cushioned tilderleather benches, stuffed with ice-white snowbird feathers, facing in opposite directions from one another. On either side of the benches were countless street food stalls, serving up links of juicy tilder-sausage, garnished with tripweed, hammelhorn steaks fresh off of the grill, roast snowbird rotissering on spits, dripping hot grease onto the pavement in steady drops.

Near the apothecary, Rook spotted his favorite stall. Even though they had just eaten, Magda and Rook could never decline an opportunity to taste Jorr's legendary woodhog ribs. Charred to a crispy finish and slathered generously with hyleflower honey sauce, the ribs were arguably the best in town, though Jorr was too modest to say as much.

As the pair approached Jorr's stall, the smoky scent of cooking meat overwhelmed their noses and set their mouths to watering. Wobbling along the road in a cloudtea haze towards Jorr, they resembled two copperwoods swaying in the wind, thralls to the storm. Surreptitiously conspiring like circumspect academics desiring to commit blasphemy, Magda and Rook sibilantly whispered jokes to each other, laughing thunderously at all of them, regardless of their level of quality or cleverness—all were shamelessly bawdy.

"Rook, my dear lad! Good to see you and the lovely Mistress Magda Burlix out and about on this dark day. I see you two are quite skyfired," Jorr greeted.

They giggled in response.

"I know the feeling. I could do with some cloudtea today but my tab at the New Bloodoak is taller than the Ironwood Glade. Shame about Varis. The bravest lass you ever saw, that one. They all talk about how many she'd put down with that crossbow of hers, best aim in the land. She was a beauty, too, wasn't she…"

A tear rolled down Rook's cheek at the mention of her name. Just then, a sudden boiling rage welled up inside of him. _Why do they all assume Varis is dead? No body was found_ , Rook fumed. He controlled his anger, instead opting to place his order. Magda and Rook strolled down the road, sticky woodhog ribs and glademaize muffins in hand – the same gladewheat hue as Magda's hair.

They sat at the nearest bench to Jorr's stall, if only to stay close to the succulent aroma emanating from it. They supported their elbows on their thighs and tucked in to their second breakfast. Treacly sauce trickled down their hands and stained their clothes and crumbs from their muffins dotted the ground around them. Picking a crumb off of the bench, Rook turned to Magda and stared for a few seconds. She noticed and faced him.

"Remember at the Great Storm Chamber back in Undertown, the Announcement Ceremony, where our journey first began? The Blackwood Bridge was so crowded that day. Back then, I was still that lowly under-librarian, destined to winch lecterns for the rest of my days in that shithole. _Our_ shithole, but still a literal shithole," Rook said nostalgically, gazing off as if he could still picture that day. "I remember when they announced your name. A mixed reaction, you'll recall," Rook added, smiling sadly. "Anyways, when they called your name, someone in the back shouted, 'Another Varis Lodd!' When I first saw you, I saw the resemblance immediately. It's probably a major reason why we were such fast friends. The same unassuming aura paired with an incongruous commanding presence. It was those soft yet piercing green eyes, like Varis, the first thing I noticed when she saved me from those accursed slavers and their bastard woodwolves."

Intently listening, Magda reached for Rook's arm as he bitterly mentioned his demons, squeezing slightly to let him know she was there and paying attention.

"Varis's golden hair with four braids. I know you used to go with three plaits, but the similarity was still striking to me. That random fellow in the back was observant, though he saw what everyone could plainly see. You knew what you were doing – you would prove those who booed wrong and rise like a phoenix from the ashes, outdoing even the great Varis Lodd."

Magda blushed, but she knew Rook was right, perhaps even understating the truth. "I don't know about all of that…," she humbly countered.

"I'm not certain about much – but of that, I am. Now, where was I?"

"Outdoing Varis."

"Right. You did just that. A methodical leader, not quite aloof. An ace with a crossbow, flight-signing, and skycraft piloting. Charismatic and harmonious, always deferring to those with more experience and lending an ear to troubled subordinates, like a waif Freeglade Lancer. I wouldn't have survived the journey through Undertown, across the Mire, disguised through the Eastern Roost… Not the escape through the trees on prowlgrinback, certainly not those logworms of the Silver Pastures; not without your help."

"Where are you going with this? I'm enthralled and all, but what's your point?" Magda prompted, her thin eyebrows raised quizzically – an expression Rook had grown to love deeply, its nature so endearing.

"The point is—I cannot go back to the Lancers. Not so soon. I'll never forget the jarring sensation each time my lance struck true. The eye-watering stench of spilling guts as I pulled my weapon from their lifeless corpses. Chinquix tearing foes apart, limb from limb. The screams," Rook entailed tearfully, shaking imperceptibly. "But, you, the next Varis Lodd; why are you on leave from the Librarian Knights? You are the best pilot they've ever had and ever will again."

"You're not the only one the war devastated, Rook," Magda snapped angrily. "When we descended on the goblins in defense of the Free Glades, I lost so many people. They were hardly more than kids, and I led them to their deaths. It shook me up in the moment, when a commander is supposed to keep it together, no matter the situation, damn the odds! They're all gone, because of me. No matter how many shrykes and goblins I put into the dirt, my Librarian Knights still fell from the sky all the same. I was powerless. They all say I'm Varis Lodd reincarnated. Hammelhorndung! The killing shook you up, but I lost people and killed more than you or Felix combined, in your entire lifetimes. I see their faces, too."

"I'm… I'm sorry. I… I didn't think. I've been selfish," Rook cringed sheepishly.

"So, I can't go back to the Library. Not now, same as you. I'll just get people killed or rack up an outrageous body count," Magda venomously spat. "I'm a monster. I can't even count how many died… how many goblins _I_ killed."

Rook was speechless. He polished off his food and sank deep into the bench cushion, suddenly no longer feeling skyfired. Without a peep, Rook cast a sidelong glance at the North Lake. It was a beautiful shade of aquamarine, the color of a lemkin—Digit—he remembered from a dream he'd had in one of the caterbird cocoons across the water, housed on the faintly illuminated Lullabee Island. The teal glow emanating from the mysterious isle closely resembled the water that encircled it.

When burned, logs cut from the vast and knobby lullabee tree emitted a somber song, known to evoke heavy emotions, faded memories, and deep, dreamy sleep. The Lullabee Island was luminous with the light given off by the trees, home to one of the most ancient lullabee groves in existence. The isle and its grove were tended to by the demure and enigmatic Oakelf Brotherhood, men of large, black eyes and few words. Hung from each tree were abandoned caterbird cocoons, their owners long since hatched and migrated.

His grandfather, Twig, aboard his sky ship, the _Skyraider_ , had told Rook of the caterbird he had rescued from the grotesqueries of Undertown, along with everything else he knew of the rare species. The wise caterbirds shared all of their dreams collectively. A caterbird was bound for life in a sacred, unspoken covenant to whosoever witnessed their hatching. Anyone who slept in a caterbird cocoon could see through the eyes of a caterbird as well as relive past moments in time.

Over the months, sleeping in a cocoon had allowed him to piece together his entire family history. Being with Magda reminded him of his great-grandfather, Quint 'Cloud Wolf' Verginix, and his great-grandmother, Maris—though their time together was short and their lives were tragic, for a time they were head-over-heels for each other, inseparable. A threadbare consolation to Rook had been the knowledge that 'Mother' Maris had founded the Free Glades with her erstwhile companion, Tweezel, the ancient spindlebug. She lived the rest of her days, until death, in a lullabee cocoon, reliving every second she shared with Quint and Twig. Though Maris was never reunited with her son, Twig, she did meet her son's daughter—Keris was her name, Rook's bubbly and adventurous mother. Despite the fact that Maris had a life that was filled with sadness, she had used her time to create what she called 'The Great Glade', a beacon of hope in a sea of misery.

Rook's thoughts were cast aside when in a bout of momentary rage, Magda left the bench and stormed towards the vast copperwood balustrade separating the promenade from North Lake, furiously muttering the whole time.

His mind drifting to the three lakes of the Free Glades, Rook also remembered his scouting missions—with his skycraft, the _Stormhornet_ , and years later, with his prowlgrin, Chinquix—to the impenetrable tree-line marking the shore of a legendary lake to the north northeast. _New Lake_ , scholars and citizens alike called it, which was a bit uninspired and unsexy as far as names went, yet true all the same. Rook had been sent there to record measurements and to report on natural resources and the ecosystem of the surrounding environs.

This was because New Lake was seen as a prime location for countryside homes to supply rich merchants with larger plots of private land. _Blasted lobbyists_ , Rook thought. The Freeglades Council had drawn up plans to expand towards the lake within the next century or so.

His slaughterer friend, Knuckle, had been sent to survey the Silver Pastures for possible sites for future stadiums, potential fairgrounds, and suitable parkland. Knuckle had taken his famous skycraft—the first one Rook had ever seen since the _Windhawk_ as a young'un—the _Woodwasp_ , and had reported on the population of grazing hammelhorns in the grassland alongside statistics on the frequency of logworm attacks. During his first voyage to the Free Glades, Knuckle had saved Rook from such a fate when a particularly obsessive logworm had encountered him.

Rook envisioned the gargantuan New Lake. It was so massive that it made the so-called Great Lake look like a measly puddle—this new lake could swallow the entire Free Glades, one-and-a-quarter times over. It was different from the other lakes in other ways besides scale—the water was hot and the lake's depth was knee-high; permanently enveloped in a film of balmy mist.

He felt a stirring in his chest, a gut feeling, about the fourth lake. He felt drawn to it, as if it were somehow important. "One-and-a- _quarter_ ," Rook murmured aloud, enunciating the last word for emphasis. "Strange word, rhymes with Barkwater if you say it a certain way." _Perhaps I am still in the clouds_ , _flying or tree-cresting_ , Rook considered.

He decided that he would go there with Magda and Chinquix someday, armed with cloudtea leaves and battle scars. Rook pictured it. His vision blurry, his crystal-blue eyes magnificently warm, clouded with a tinge of red. _They don't call it cloudtea as a joke_. Lost in his thoughts again, Rook continued imagining. He was turning a corner around a gladewillow, notes of woodsalvia wafting through the humid air—a smell like bristleweed tea. There was Magda, her hair in one large braid, interlaced with fragrant herbs. She was kneeling down and massaging Chinquix's fatigued bones with woodsalvia balm, cooing soothingly at him—much like how Varis had when Rook was in her arms that fateful day—and gently petting the prowlgrin's flanks. Magda's hands were stained purple. In his daydream, Chinquix's fur was black as night, but Rook thought nothing of it, as he didn't even register the discrepancy consciously. "Tallix, boy," her voice hissed unnervingly. "A noble name for a noble creature."

Rook opened his eyes as his mind gradually cleared. Getting up groggily, Rook sauntered over to where Magda was sulking. "I dreamed about you," he greeted awkwardly.

"What is it now, Rook?" Magda tiredly grumbled, a crushing look of resignation marring her comely features. "Let me alone. I don't want to talk."

"You were supposed to be helping _me_ today, remember?" Rook quipped impishly.

His insignificant reminder granted him a whisper of a smile from Magda. She pointed her finger at him and made a _whoosh_ -ing noise with her mouth. Rook clutched his chest in comedic frivolity and facetiously sank to the ground. After a bit of chuckling about their lame joke, Magda remarked, "If you don't go away, I'll shoot you with my actual crossbow for serious."

"Aren't you going to give me a hand up, Mistress Magda?" he flashed her his best doleful look. She just stared back. "When one takes a knee for a woman, he expects some assistance standing afterwards," Rook ribaldly jested.

Magda let out slow, rumbling laughter that turned into a storm of levity. His juvenile joke conformed to the uncultured sense of humor they both shared, bringing jovial tears to their eyes. She gave him a playful backhand swat with her wobbling hand, courtesy of the cloudtea, and helped him up finally.

"I'm feeling much better after we talked. Maybe it's a second wind or something—damn strong cloudtea today, bless Gilda. Things seem clearer now. I see that it isn't just me who's struggling," Rook said ponderously. Magda eyes seemed sunken and haunted and her face was ruddy with the receding tide of her scary yet attractive fury.

"I should've made that clear far earlier. There's only myself I have to blame for bottling it up," she confided.

Seized by the moment, Rook pulled Magda in for a banderbear hug. She was taken by surprise and yipped like a fromp buzzed on pinecoffee. They held the tender embrace for a minute or so, the woody scent of her hair pervading his senses, her exciting body hot to the touch.

Staring off into the distance—over the farmlands, to Lake Landing, the military academy of the Librarian Knights, and their base of operations, the campus and the New Great Library – astride the Great Lake—Magda said, "Would you look at us?" She pushed back a stray ringlet behind her slightly pointed ear. "Two cowardly outcasts, lonely drifters, damaged and broken. Heirs to everything and nothing."

Rook held her intense gaze, but couldn't keep it for long. Resigned to silence, he waited for her to continue or to walk away, never to be seen again, just like Varis. Rook felt like he had to protect Magda, ignoring the fact that she was far more dangerous and self-reliant than him—or _anyone_ else, for that matter. _I don't want her to die. The Gloamglozer take the bloody Library and everybody else with a cause to sell us on!_ Rook internally admonished himself for the caustic nature of his resentful curse.

Rook remembered something she had said before, when he had praised her bravery and poise: _I have three older brothers. I've had to learn to hold my own_. She didn't need anyone to protect her. As it stood, her elder brothers—Milton, Murven, and Marcius—couldn't protect themselves when Spume's glade-eater crushed the very life from them. Rook was admiring how well she had handled their deaths, at least on a surface level.

He just felt he cried far too much these days, so different from his time in the Librarian Knights, and later, in the Freeglade Lancers—before the mental scars of war caught up to him, mercilessly ravaging his emotional equilibrium and smashing his self-esteem and sense of wellbeing. Magda, her glittering green eyes flashing, continued speaking.

"Yet, I think that can be changed. Life looks terrible for both of us, but there's some redemption out there. I just know that there's a reason we're still alive after everything. Open Sky sounds inviting and all, but don't we have to take advantage of every living moment we get?" Magda declared, with a defiant smile. "Like I said this morning, there's no point wallowing. If we're taking a break from our worldly duties, we might as well do _something_. We can start by actually showing up at the memorial. Then, we should see about fixing up the apothecary. I had another idea, it's sort of a plan I've been working on."

Rook's interest was piqued by her mysterious comments. "What plan? Why do we need a plan…?"

"When I was last with the Most High Academe, Cowlquape showed me some old intelligence files he gathered before Vox betrayed him to the Guardians of Night. He was exchanging ratbird messages with Captain Twig at the time, who had informed him about a particularly cruel slaver by the name of Turgesh Sykkant, Thunderbolt Vulpoon's replacement in the industry. The latest information claims that he retired when stone-sickness arrived, and has been in hiding ever since. He was known for feeding his woodwolves with 'difficult' slaves—combative or noisy victims. Does that blasted scoundrel sound like anyone we know?"

Rook gawped at her, slack-jawed with bewilderment. The blood drained from his already pale face, leaving it severely ashen-looking. He soundlessly cried. He would've stifled his tears, but he was too busy remembering _that_ day. Rook's heart skipped a beat in apprehension, his stomach fluttering with dread like an epic showdown between a woodwasp and a stormhornet—the two flying fortresses, trading jabs and cuts like leaguesman bidding over stocks, fighting ferociously over the bloated and putrid corpse of a slimy and wart-encrusted halitoad.

"Rook! Listen to me. We're good at two things: writing and killing. We're going to find the fucker who murdered your parents and feed him to his own whitecollar woodwolves! We'll paint Sykkant's name in the dirt with his own blood! We'll make him tell us everything he knows – who he worked for, how many people did he kill," Magda exclaimed vengefully, her eyes blazing with righteous determination. A woman on a mission—and she wanted _Rook_ by her side for it. His negative thoughts were cast aside as he eagerly imagined making Sykkant squeal like a woodhog to the slaughter, pitifully begging for mercy – something he never showed Keris or Shem or all the others.

"Then, we'll put those blasted wolves down for good. My nightmares will be gone if I avenge them," Rook uttered finally. "But, you know what they say about revenge. There's no ironwood hull-weight heavy enough to bring the dead back down from Open Sky."

"Don't go soft on me now, Rook. So, the girls in the tavern that say you know your way around an ironwood lance are lying? If you don't do it, you'll be forever remembered as Rook Barkwater, the venerated hero who makes water in his trousers in the face of adversity," Magda teased savagely.

 _She beats me in Splinters, she beats me with my own pride_ , Rook realized. _Could I win for a change?_

"Okay, we'll make the repairs to the shop. When the time is right, we'll go after him. But, I'm not ready for it. Not yet. I need to go to Waif Glen and Lullabee Island first. I need to stay put and say my goodbyes to the Free Glades, in case we don't return alive. Give me a month, a year," he answered.

"Sykkant can keep," she replied.

Magda and Rook calmed down and felt the effects of the cloudtea return in another sensuous wave, comforted with the knowledge that the tea would soothe their internal and external wounds – at least, for the next few hours. In the face of such pain, the splendidly beautiful youths grinned helplessly. The scorching noonday sun was slowly but steadily approaching its zenith.

After a few more minutes of idle chatter, the Lufwood Tower's absurdly powerful bronze bell rung the hour, noon, in a resounding clangor of brazen violence. The ruckus boomed down the streets and alleys of New Undertown, picking up dust and, Rook thought shamelessly, skirts in the pressure wave.

"I don't want to be within ten thousand strides of that statue today. We're skyfired, so sadly we have no excuse not to show up," Rook said hopelessly, but without the usual weight in his chest.

"Be strong, Rook," Magda commiserated thoughtfully, leaning in to kiss his rugged cheek comfortingly. Her lips burned through him like white-hot tongs.

As the echoing _bongs_ subsided, the pair turned in the direction of the Lufwood Tower and started towards the town square. Rook had an idea, but kept it to himself.


	5. Chapter Five -- Nobody

When Magda and Rook arrived at the town square from Lakeside, freezing rain—uncharacteristic of a summer in the Deepwoods—had begun to fall. It was pleasant at first, a much welcomed break from the monotonous humidity and oppressive heat, but soon chilled them to the bone. The town square was packed with mourners of all types—soldiers, merchants, and politicians; brogtrolls and cloddertrogs, gnokgoblins and mobgnomes, fourthlings and slaughterers, and a handful of woodtrolls—their tears masked by the ominous downpour.

In the center of the square was the monument itself. Covering Xanth's memorial statue of Varis was an opaque nightspidersilk shawl, soaking up all light and reflecting none back – the same as the heavy hearts assembled. In front of the statue was a procession of floating sumpwood lecterns, to buoy up the Council of Ten, the leaders of the Free Glades.

* * *

From left to right, there was Lob and Lummel Grope, low-belly goblin brothers who defected from the Goblin Nations, along with most of their other soldiers, through a movement called the Friends of the Harvest. Shorn of their tattered straw bonnets and patched peasant attire, the Grope brothers looked magnificent. The pair had traded their farming hats for richly tasseled black-and-white mortarboard caps, along the vein of Old Sanctaphrax couture, with opulent and plush barkfelt topcoats, covered in gold brocade. Under their coats, they wore bespoke crimson tunics and billowy gladeonion-purple velvet breeches. To support their ample bellies, they utilized tilderleather belly slings.

Next to the brothers was the lazy-looking mayor of New Undertown, Hebb Lub-Drub, another fellow low-belly goblin. Rook knew him enough to know that looks were deceiving. Hebb utilized a misleading outward appearance in politics in order to get his foes to underestimate him. He hadn't become the mayor without finessing. This obfuscation was fostered through public drunkenness and woodmoth-riddled clothing—his clothes and belly sling were faded and resembled a soulless gray, spotted with stains and rips.

In contrast, beside Hebb was the sagacious Keeper of the Garden of Thoughts in Waif Glen, Cancaresse. She was cloaked in an unadorned pumpkin-blue gladecotton robe. Before the end of the War for the Free Glades, she conducted the Reckoning trial of Xanth Filatine and cleared his name—despite public opinion and the severe nature of his crimes.

Xanth had been a double agent working for the High Guardian personally, the crazed and evil Orbix Xaxis himself. He had accompanied Rook, Magda, and Stob on their original voyage to the Free Glades four years back. On arrival, he fed the Guardians of Night information on the journeys of other Librarian apprentices, leaving them to be tortured and killed. When Xanth fled the Free Glades after his deeds were discovered, he had returned to the arms of Xaxis and continued interrogating prisoners before their executions at the hands of rubble ghouls and rock demons.

The apprentices were just kids, and even Rook had secretly never forgiven Xanth for it, no matter his other good deeds—even though Xanth had saved Magda from execution, carried Rook safely from a sepia-storm in the Edgelands, and single-handedly killed the last leader of the Eastern Roost. Xanth was about to be exiled when Magda had showed up at the last minute to provide exonerating testimony, telling the whole Free Glades about their harrowing escape from the evil Tower of Night, conveniently leaving out the part about how Xanth violently interrogated her when he was being watched by others. Everyone had thought her dead after the crash—the fact that she had dragged the _Woodmoth_ all the way home gave insurmountable weight to her opinion on the matter. Though some were swayed, ultimately sparing Xanth from exile or even a public execution, many still bore him ill will – for both valid and ridiculous reasons. Nevertheless, Xanth was still Rook's friend; Rook would defend him with his lifeblood if necessary.

After Cancaresse was the painfully thin, tormented figure of the Most High Academe and head of the Freeglades Council, Cowlquape Pentephraxis, Captain Twig's most trusted friend. Yet, despite the trauma he had endured in his long life, Cowlquape was still dignified and respected. His snow-white hair was still luxuriant, his pointed beard remained thick. His gaunt face had always smiled for Rook and provided him with useful wisdom and random 'fun facts', as Cowlquape fondly called them.

The most distressed of the figures was Varis's esteemed father, Fenbrus Lodd himself – the High Librarian; previously haughty and fusty, now somber and dulled by grief. His normally elegant forked beard was bedraggled, his sumptuous head of hair scraggy. Fenbrus's signature robe was still spotless, as even with such a sorrow as the loss of his beautiful daughter, he wouldn't allow himself to plunge into a well of absolute despair—the man still had some standards, regardless of the circumstances.

There was the sickly figure of Parsimmon, the High Master of Lake Landing Academy, clutching at his robes. As of recently, the aging gnokgoblin had begun to ail. Therefore, he had begun to groom Xanth for power, mentoring him as his future replacement – much to the uproarious denouncement of a large section of Freegladers.

Deep in conversation was Ulbus Vespius, the Professor of Light, and his close colleague, Tallus Penitax, the Professor of Darkness. Though Ulbus, a distant relative of Mother Maris on her mother's side, was the senior of the two, he was still a handsome fellow, very similar in appearance to Cowlquape. Tallus, on the other hand, was a dour-looking gentleman, with dark, brooding eyes and black hair. Both wore full Librarian Knight uniforms—close-fitting orange tops and moss-green breeches, with copperwood armor plates—casting aside traditional academic robes for more practical attire.

Lastly, the farthest to the right, near the North Lake, was the tenth and the newest member of the Freeglades Council. Rook's oldest friend, Felix Lodd, looked out of place without his bleached muglumpskin armor. To help his father recover from Varis's supposed death, Felix had left the Ghosts of New Undertown to join the Librarian Knights as their interim commander, filling in for his sister's replacement, Magda, while she was away on stress leave.

* * *

Magda and Rook sat in the front row of a seating arrangement of intricately carved blackwood benches, reserved specifically for dignitaries as well as war veterans – the pair most definitely fit the bill on both counts. The whole square of people waited with bated breath for the speeches to be given, the eulogies to be recited, the statue to be unveiled. In the left-most corner of the square was a huge portraiture of Varis Lodd, made with the highest-quality oil paints, significantly better than anything Rook had ever scribbled. _Zetta's_ _work, I imagine. It's how Xanth and she met, according to Magda_ , he thought.

Finally, Cowlquape's booming voice cut through the silence like a dagger through a shryke's still-beating heart. The crowd let out a collective intake of breath in anticipation. "Freegladers," he said. "Friends, we are gathered here today to honor the sacrifice of the former commander of the valiant Librarian Knights, as well as her fellow pilots who accompanied her in the defense of the New Great Library. They burned to death to save that bastion of knowledge from the fires of evil."

Rook got up to fetch an entire pitcher of winesap to drown his sorrow, then sat down next to Magda. She reacted by giving him a withering look of disapproval— _what are you doing,_ she mouthed. He began to chug the pitcher down, the burning, sweet fluid coursing down his throat, warming his chest and dulling his pain.

Cowlquape's loud voice echoed round the square, filling the audience's ears with heart-wrenching details of their brave sacrifice before returning to the subject of Varis. He spoke of her as if her death was an irrefutable fact. Rook tried to tune out the speech. He closed his eyes and took a series of deep breaths. This calmed him down enough to pay attention again.

"I have heard rumblings about certain individuals spreading rumors that her body was never found, but I can assure every one of you that she is certainly gone, up into the merciful embrace of Open Sky – eternal nirvana. Her flight was engulfed in flame, her _Windhawk_ seen slamming into an ironwood pine at a blistering speed. These rumors of her survival are false and only serve to set us up for—"

Rook drained the pitcher, wiping his mouth with his sleeve and was suddenly unable to stomach such hammelhorndung any longer, no doubt a result of his questionable drinking practices. His reacquired composure was lost in a heartbeat. Rook sat up with a start and flung the metal pitcher to the floor with a resounding _clang_ , interrupting Cowlquape midsentence. All eyes darted towards Rook, witnessing him in his drunken glory. The square erupted with a squall of shocked gasps.

"With all due respect," Rook brusquely blurted, his quavering voice cracking with emotion all the while. "That's where you're wrong! All of you should be ashamed of yourselves for giving up on her so easily. When I was shot down over Screetown, everyone was content to write me off as another casualty of the strange weather. Yet, clearly, I'm not dead, you bloody bastards."

"None of you listened to Magda Burlix when she held out hope for me. When she herself was shot down over the Eastern Roost during the war, all of you did the same thing, ignoring Xanth Filatine out of spite!" Rook declared hotly. "But, do you not see her?"

He lifted her from her seated position. "Why, Magda's right next to me! Does she look dead to you? She dragged herself and the _Woodmoth_ from the Eastern Roost all the way back to the Free Glades and you question the possibility that Varis is still alive – _the_ Varis Lodd herself?"

Felix Lodd shot him a ferocious gaze that seared through him like a poison arrow, a feeling Rook was all too familiar with—just not coming from his oldest friend. "What do you think you're doing, Rook," Felix shouted, visibly incensed and ruddy-faced.

" _You_ of all people ask me that question," Rook retorted sharply. "You gave up on your hero, your own sister, for Sky's sake! Tell me, esteemed council," he angrily spat, wrenching his eyes from Felix to glare at the leaders of the Free Glades. "Where's the body? You looked everywhere, scouring the entire Ironwood Stands for her corpse, yet all you found was the mangled wreckage of the _Windhawk_. You won't admit it, but there is no body there. You convince nobody with your threadbare fantasies."

Tallus Penitax responded to Rook's acerbic accusations in a calm and clear voice. "A predator could've easily eaten it on the spot or dragged it to its lair." Fenbrus stifled a wail.

"This close to the Free Glades, in the stronghold of the Lancers, no less? I ought to throw you off of the Edge cliff for your weak logic!" Rook impotently threatened.

"How dare you!" Felix screamed furiously, his face purple with acute ire. "You accuse me of being a terrible brother, you threaten the Professor of Darkness, and you grandstand at my own sister's memorial. You're out of _fucking_ line, Rook. Get out before I thrash you!"

Magda got up, cursing unspeakable things as she dragged Rook away from the square, around the cloaked statue chiseled out of marble from the Cloddertrog Caves to the east, and into the Lufwood Tower. As she led him up the Blackwood Staircase, her firm grip wrenched his wrist painfully. Stopping at the top stair before the first landing, she sat down heavily, bringing Rook down with her. The winesap's effects began to falter and a pounding headache began. _Did I just do that_ , Rook thought with dread. _Damn and blast_!

"What the blazes were you thinking, Rook?" Magda demanded fiercely, her eyes fiery with barely-contained frustration. "You fool. They could've clapped you in irons!"

"Cowlquape was misleading everyone. Were you not paying attention? There's no body, yet they claim with absolute certainty that Varis is dead. I couldn't let that stand. You know that she would've done the same thing," Rook sulkily rebuked.

"You shouldn't have drunk that _entire_ pitcher. Tweezel's winesap would knock a lugtroll on its rump with that stuff. Even if Varis would've done the same thing, that doesn't make it right."

Rook squirmed in disbelief and outrage. Magda roughly restrained him, squeezing his arms tightly. "Not you, too. Don't tell me you've given up on her."

"Slip of the tongue, I didn't mean anything by it. Calm down!"

"No, _you_ calm down!"

"Stop acting like a child in a tantrum, throwing his toys out his playpen," Magda scolded. "Alive or not, you can't act out this way, like a young'un of four years."

Rook glowered at her in simmering resentment, fading as his intoxication fled and the truth of her words sunk in. Yet again, she was right – about everything.

"I'm just lost in this seething cauldron of hate. Why is everyone so blind?"

Magda sighed. She wanted to assuage Rook's worries but she wasn't sure if she had the energy to solve his agitation. The doors to the entrance swung open and a flurry of leaves entered the Lufwood Tower, strewn across the marble floor.

The wind pushed back Magda's golden hair and chilled Rook to the bone. She put her arm around his shoulder and pulled him towards her. Through their soaked clothing, they could feel the body heat of each other.

"You can't blame them for listening to Cowlquape… Our fellow citizens have assumed the worst because they don't know Varis like we do. In their eyes, you and I are operating on faith alone," Magda explained. "And Rook – what you have to understand is that the Freeglades Council has earned the right to govern as they see fit.

Rook thought for a moment. By then, their teeth had stopped chattering and their bodies had stopped shivering. He was still angry.

"The people put Varis up on a pedestal," he said, angry tears flowing freely. "They believe that she's capable of anything, so why can't they think for themselves?"

"It doesn't matter if or what they think. We don't need their help in finding Varis. If she still lives, we'll bring her home."

Magda smiled as she wiped a tear from his cheek. Dark circles blemished his face, a sign of how worn-out he was from his earlier outburst.

"Do you promise?" Rook asked, eyes full of hope. He knew the answer.

"Of course. Now, I know you're still upset. The best way to move on is to accomplish something, no matter how insignificant. Your mind will clear when we go to the shop," Magda suggested helpfully.

"Seeing Cade always puts things into perspective," Rook added.

"He doesn't exist solely for your inspiration," she reprimanded. "Come on. Let's go. The whole family should be home – like you, _and_ me, they believe Varis is still alive, so they didn't bother to show up. You were right that we shouldn't have gone to the memorial. The day was going so well…"

When Magda and Rook finished their pep talk and got up from the floor, she pulled him in for another hug, her wet plaits the smell of toasted woodalmonds, draped upon his shoulders like tassels; his tears were invisible as they fell silently on her drenched kurta. Rook navigated his frigid hands to the small of her back and squeezed tighter, her hands rubbing his shoulder blades warmly. She shivered from his cold touch, courtesy of the freezing rain pattering outside. Magda kissed his salty cheek before pulling away gently from their intimate embrace.

"Your cheek tastes good," she commented peculiarly.

"What?" Rook replied. "Magda, you're weird."

"You know it – it's why you love me.

His chest clenched with tension. Anxiety gnawed at him, his conflicted emotions vying for control.

"What do you mean?"

"You're my best friend and I'm yours; forever and always."

Rook was relieved and crestfallen simultaneously.

"Let's get a move on," Magda continued after a pause. "Quickly, while the sun still shines!"

"What accursed sunshine? It's miserable out there."

"Rook, we're wasting daylight with these quibbles of yours. It's really getting on my nerves," she snapped. "Stop being such a grammar-guardian all the time and take a break from your brooding!"

Magda took his hand and led Rook down the stairs. Their boots clicked and squeaked on the slippery marble floor. Through the doorway they went and away from the square and the Lufwood Tower. It was terribly cold but her hand warmed Rook's entire being. He wasn't sure what the exhilarating feeling in his chest was but he wanted it to never end.


	6. Chapter Six -- Hive Huts and Herbalism

Rook raced through the pouring, icy rain with Magda, the temperature leading him to remember a cocoon dream he had had about the Second Endless Winter, the famous winter that had besieged the Edgeworld for over a year. When the storm finally ended, the melting ice poured down into the stonecomb, erupting in a shower of cold water emanating from the holes dotting the Sanctaphrax rock itself.

As they dashed through the streets and alleys of New Undertown, Rook felt as if the rain tormenting him was the same as that all of those years ago. In his dream, Rook had seen through the eyes of his great-grandmother, Maris. _The Winter Knights_ , Raffix called them – Quint, Maris, Raff, Phin, and Stope – before they selflessly flew far out into Open Sky, aboard the rickety stormchasing vessel, the _Cloudslayer_.

This had been a foolhardy endeavor to say the least, venturing into the eye of the winter's storm to cure a sick glister, 'the cloudeater', which had caused the storm in the first place. Fighting turbulence and with the risk of the flight-rock turning super-buoyant, Quint bravely flew the intrepid band of heroes to and from the endless realm.

 _A sick irony that he was lost in the eye of a storm, stolen from Twig by Open Sky itself_ , Rook thought bitterly as the torrential downpour raged on ceaselessly.

Puddles of frigid water filled in the gaps between the cobbles of the uneven pavement underfoot. As they approached the conical peaks of the Hive Huts, which Burlix's apothecary was across the street from, Rook looked up at the anvil-shaped storm clouds hanging over the Free Glades.

Darting between the clouds, Rook could see a flight of skycraft a hundred strong—like a skein of snowbirds—barreling through the air above. At the head of the formation was Felix Lodd, seemingly no worse for wear after his heated disagreement with Rook less than an hour ago. He was wrangling with the sails of his new skycraft, the _White Raven_ , in the poor weather.

Nearing the shop, the smooth cobblestones transitioned to unpaved dirt. Magda and Rook trudged through the squelching mud, sullying their boots and pants alike.

Once the two arrived at their destination, Rook spied the name of the place written above the front door, spelled with wrought-iron lettering: _Burlix's Herbalism Store_. The door and the front wall were recent additions, as the bottom floor had been practically gutted in the glade-eater attack.

The storefront was furnished with two display windows on either side of the paneled lufwood door, the view of the inside obscured by curtains. Nailed to the front entrance was a barkpaper pamphlet with one word on it: _CLOSED_. From the top of the lower level were the eaves of the building, the front door nestled below an elegant portico supported with braided pillars. Above the overhang was the windowless second floor, where Magda's parents would see patients. The top floor was peppered with thin lancet windows while the shingled roof was arranged in a hip configuration. For all the damage the structure had suffered, it was still considerably more opulent than most of the neighboring buildings – simple wooden constructions, chiefly. This one was adorned with marblework. Magda tried the door but found it locked.

"Blast!" she swore.

In response, she throttled the ironwood door knocker violently as she shivered in the cold. Rook knew how much she hated the building now that her older brothers were gone. Magda was only there due to a sense of duty she believed she had to her family.

"Why do they insist on locking the shop? It won't stop a glade-eater. And, we're in the Free Glades – nobody's going to steal our stuff," Magda vented.

Rook listened obsequiously, oblivious to how upset she actually was and how much she missed her dead brothers. He didn't even register the usual signs of her anger; biting her nails in agitation and chewing her chapped lower lip anxiously.

Rook clutched her left hand in his grasp while she tried the knocker again with her right one. Magda was so angry that she didn't notice that her sharp nails were digging into his rough palm, leaving mildly painful welts behind as evidence. A memento of sorts. This got Rook's attention finally.

"Ow!" he exclaimed, looking over at her.

"Sorry," Magda said with a slight flinch, startled by his words, so enveloped in her own thoughts; whilst Rook's mind was racing, so was hers.

"What's on your mind?" Rook asked, affectionately pushing back a thick, sodden plait that was hiding one of her dazzling jade-colored eyes from his view, depriving him of her most striking feature.

 _That's better_ , Rook mused as he looked at her, enraptured as he followed the path of a cold raindrop as it slid down her shining neck to her chest. His face reddened with embarrassment, but Magda didn't seem to notice his guilty expression.

"What do you think?" Magda snapped. Her green eyes, rich with roiling emotions, were welling with tears, but not enough to fall on her cheeks. "This accursed door. Brave Marcius, courageous Milton, daring Murven… I loathe this Wilderness Lair."

Glowering back at the door, Magda gave one of the panels on the door a solid punch, hard enough to break Hemtuft Battleaxe's jaw, if she had gotten the chance during battle. She began to relax.

"Magda!" Rook jumped, shaken by the sudden burst of action.

She stuck her formidable fist through the hole and unlocked the door through brute force. "There, it's open," she said, with a devilish grin, satisfied with her physical strength. Clearly, Magda had quelled her negative emotions, somewhat, by striking the front door.

"That's one way you could do it," Rook softly breathed into the storm.

Magda gently pushed the door open and strode inside, eager to escape the blustery weather, pulling Rook in behind her. It was almost pitch-black inside – no tallow candles were burning and no light entered past the thick velvety curtains guarding the windows. As Rook's deep blue eyes adjusted to the darkness, details of his surroundings gradually became clear. Magda produced one of the drenched sky-crystals she kept in her pocket and used it to light a handful of candelabras scattered around the first floor, in the four corners of the room on the grimy ground.

The place glowed with white light as the wicks caught fire, reflected upon Magda's beautiful cheeks; the flames cast ominous, long shadows on the varnished wooden flooring. Rook looked around. The ground was scarred and the shelves were gone along with the countertop. In fact, the only other furnishings besides the candelabras was a lone lufwood stove in the corner. Rook helped Magda collect logs to build a fire, to warm up the shop and to thaw their aching bones. She lit it with a second sky-crystal, a rush of heat greeting them.

"As you can see," Magda said, while replacing the door plank she broke. "We've managed to put up new walls down here, but we still need to shore up the rest of the walls on the upper floors; some are cracked, others are crumbling into nothing. The entire shop level is wrecked. There's basically nothing left. This is not the priority yet – the top floor is. The family needs a proper home again. Forget the shop, forget the clinic above us; the living quarters are crucial. We'll repair the rest later."

Rook listened intently, fawning at her determination to remedy the battle damage. Magda's drive to get things done had always inspired him and drove him to take action.

"Where should we start today?" he asked.

"Let's first go to the top and see why nobody came to the door," she replied, gesturing towards the stairs with her bloodied right hand.

"Okay, but you should get your hand looked at."

"Oh, _this_? This scratch? It's nothing."

"You don't want to get a splinter, eh?"

"Don't start with that shit, Rook. You think I'm afraid to break a nail? Please."

The floorboards of the stairs spookily creaked and moaned as Magda and Rook padded up them to the top. He squeezed her arm tightly as he felt a cold tingling make its way up and down his spine. The place scared him after Magda's brothers died.

In response, at the landing for the second floor, she uncovered his ear from behind his coal-black curls and whispered reassuringly, "Don't be afraid. I'm right here with you," before giving it a sultry kiss with her damp lips—hot to the touch—provoking a nervous titter from Rook.

He shuddered blissfully; the ear was one of the most erogenous places on a fourthling's body –and Magda knew it. He desperately wanted to know what her intentions were. Rook was electrified by her touch, and he felt a tsunami of emotions he didn't understand at the time.

They quickly ducked into the clinic so that Magda could clean and dress her hurt hand. When the pair reached the top of the staircase, they paused to catch their breaths noisily.

"Mother? Father?" she called out into the half-light as she opened the door to the dim-lit abode. Magda and Rook emerged into a dusty hallway, brightened by a lone ensconced candle flickering weakly further down. He looked at their shadows along the wall as hers illuminated her pleasant figure. His muscled limbs were also apparent in his own shadowed form, bulging through his thin orange tunic, drawing Magda's gaze for a split-second—Rook was sure he had imagined it. _Of course I did. She's probably in love with Xanth for all I know_ , his shattered self-esteem malevolently jeered silently.

After a few seconds, Magda began opening doors. All of them were positioned on the left side of the hallway in relation to the staircase.

"Esme?" she called out. No response. "Cade?"

"In here!" a man's voice exclaimed. Opening the last door on the left, Magda and Rook were face-to-face with what remained of the Burlix family.

"Why did no one come to the door earlier?" Magda said indignantly.

Her younger brother, Cade, was lying in the bed in the center of the room, sleeping. Though tall compared to Rook, the fragile-looking boy of fourteen years was as skinny as a stick, robbed of most of his muscle tone. It was almost as if a gale could snap him in two. Cade's scruffy auburn hair was matted, his green eyes closed in his peaceful slumber.

Cade's room was filled with cabinets and shelves, brimming with a deluge of medicines of various types, to treat the profusion of complications brought on by his muscular disease. The bottles were labeled in scrawled handwriting – Rook had to squint to read them: _woodcamphor oil, woodsalvia balm, hyleberry salve, woodpepper extract, earthapple poultice, delberry unguent, blue sumpneedle elixir_. There was a surfeit of other unctuous cerates and liniments lining the walls, so Rook lost count after a while.

On a lushly cushioned chair on casters in the corner of the stuffy room sat Magda's younger sister, gorgeous Esme. Like her twin brother, Cade, and her father, Ned, Esme had the same straight auburn hair and green eyes as them. She looked distraught, with guilt or some other temporary affliction of the heart.

"Gloamglozer take you," Esme quietly cursed, fuming with anger at Magda's lack of consideration or awareness of the palpable tension conquering the room.

"Curse you, too," Magda retorted casually. _Sisters_ , Rook thought humorously.

Listening to the foul exchange between his children whilst carefully applying a fragrant unguent to Cade's knees, Ned issued a scathing admonishment: "The only jokes I've made in my life are sitting in front of me."

Ned's green eyes glinted with annoyance. He stroked his auburn beard thoughtfully, before greeting Rook warmly and apologizing for the conduct of his darling daughters.

By his side was his wife, Ada, who was on her knees tending to an angry purplish bruise on Cade's forehead, lovingly rubbing an effluvious lotion into his painful temples. Though she shared thepiercing greeneyes withthemajorityofher family, Magda ultimately favored her mother's looks. While Ada Burlix had ice-blue eyes, they still had the curly long gladewheat-colored hair in common.

"Father, what happened to Cade?" Magda asked in a very concerned tone, her eyes widening as she finally surveyed the scene. She went over to Cade, knelt down, and planted a sisterly kiss on his pale cheek, before turning to face Esme. Magda pointed accusingly at her sister, her enraged eyes glinting like jade daggers in the sun.

"How could you let this happen?!" Magda spat.

"That's enough!" Ned commanded. "There's no use pointing fingers. Cade slept in late. As far as we can tell, he had a nightmare about the glade-eater attack and fell out of bed. He hit his head and knees hard. Your mother and I have given him some hyleberry salve for inflammation, meadowsage lotion for healing, and gladepoppy milk for the pain. Esme blames herself, but none of us could've done anything to prevent it. Thank Sky he didn't break anything this time."

"That's a relief," Magda muttered. She pushed a rogue strand of blond hair out of her face with her clammy palm. "We came to help with the repairs, but it's probably best if we come back tomorrow."

" _We_? So our good lad Rook here decided to help?" Ned commented.

"Yes." Magda replied simply as she put an arm around Rook's shoulder. He blushed conspicuously, causing Ned to chuckle heartily. "What?" she asked.

"Oh, nothing. Just saw something that brought back memories," he said.

"Mm-hmm. _Interesting_ ," Magda replied, her words dripping with sarcasm.

"Where'll you two stay? Don't tell me you plan on coming back and forth from the Library every day. You'll both need sumpwood chairs if you do that."

"Ned!" Ada rebuked.

"What? Was it something I said?" Ned turned to face his wife with an incredulous expression. He cleared his throat and continued. "As I was saying, what's your plan, dear?"

"We'll stay at the Hive Huts. I've already asked my friend, Tanis, to pick up some clothes from the apartment back at the Library. Rook and I can head there now – we can hit the bar in the roundhouse while we wait for dinner to be served," Magda explained.

"I hope you requested _two_ rooms."

"As opposed to what, three rooms?"

"I think you know what I'm saying."

Rook's face had turned the color of red steamtubers as the conversation ensued.

"Oh, so – what? You think Rook and I…? Huh!" Magda scoffed at the notion derisively. "You're incorrigible, father."

"I'm just saying, you're like two cloudpeas in a pod." Ned winked at Rook. "You know, lad, you're all she talks about when she's at home. You'd be a good couple; what say you? About time we had some new little Burlixes running amok."

"Ned!" Ada rebuked yet again.

"Blast it, woman," Ned calmly cursed.

Finished treating Cade's forehead, Ada Burlix left the room. Rook heard her close the door to the stairway behind her as she made her way out of the building.

"I can never win with her," Ned murmured distractedly, suddenly serious. Then, he was back to his mischievous antics, toying with Rook mildly. "What about you, Rook, lad? Can you win an argument with Maggie? By Earth and Sky, I doubt—"

Magda cut her father off mid-sentence.

"You're trying to embarrass me, but it isn't working. Father, we're leaving now – Rook doesn't need to hear any more of your nonsense." Magda turned to look at Rook, making eye-contact with him and reaching for his calloused hands. "Let's go, Rook, before my father says something else ludicrous."

"Hey, wait a minute, missy!" Ned faced Rook again. "You see, Rook, this is exactly what I'm on about. Why do I bother trying to spruce the place up with some levity for a change?"

"You have enough grandchildren to worry about, or have you forgotten? Your son wastes away! While you search for a lame joke, you ignore the meaning of your words!"

"Dear, you wrong me. I haven't forgotten. You're off gallivanting while your nephews and nieces are fatherless. Your _three_ sister-in-laws are bereft and overwhelmed. The family needs you. This has nothing to do with my jokes!"

" _Goodbye_ , Father," Magda firmly called as she took Rook by the hand and slammed Cade's bedchamber door behind them dramatically, their thunderous exit stirring up a cloud of dust that stung their eyes. He noticed that her leafy-green eyes were brimming with bitter tears, making them appear glazed over with sadness.

With a sad scoff, Magda spoke. "I haven't cried this much since the war." She angrily wiped the tears from her face. "How do you deal with it?"

"What, the crying? You become numb after a while. I never used to cry much – not since Varis found me in the banderbear nest. But now, I don't see the point in worrying about it."

"My parents always said that crying was cathartic and necessary."

"Stob, the last person you'd expect to say this, once told me, 'Crying reminds us that we're alive—that, and hammelhorn steaks fresh off the grill.'"

Magda laughed feebly.

"Like you told them all, I'm not dead. Perhaps Stob is right…"

"We've both been given a second chance," Rook said, his blue eyes sparkling in the candlelit hallway, the gloom of the rainstorm held at bay. "This day has put things in context. Chaos walks amongst the shadows, creeping up behind us, waiting to strike. Like a waif assassin or a feral woodcat. Today could be the beginning of a golden age or the final moment of peacetime."

"I get it. Make the most of the present.

 _Rook, say the words, damn you_ , his conscience screamed. Rook's chest tightened and his heart was hammering against his ribcage like an enraged woodwolf trying to escape an enclosure.

He couldn't get the words out: I love you. "Exactly."

In the other room, Ned was smiling. His daughter had found a spectacular soul as a companion. Whether they remained friends or their relationship blossomed into something more wasn't important—as long as his grieving Maggie was happy.

The first few days after the war, Magda had slept catatonically with her door bolted shut. Tormented by nightmares and phantasms, she suffered alone. Only Rook managed to reach her, convincing her to leave her room. Soon after leaving, the whole room fell through the floor. It was the reason she had moved into the Library with Rook – the only reason, or so Magda had said.

Magda and Rook searched the house for two oilskin raincoats before traveling down the steps and crossing the path to get to the Hive Huts. As the brutal wind buffeted their cloaks wildly, Rook glanced up at the grandiose superstructure ahead of them momentarily, built in one of the several dozen goblin styles – hence their names.

 _Home for however long_ , Rook thought.

The Huts were a network of seven individual towers linked together by internal walkways connected to a central building. Though all of them possessed arched scentwood doors, most individuals used the elegant entrance to the main building—a single-leveled domed rotunda with a supportive colonnade comprised of fluted marble pillars. The towers themselves were tan and squat mud constructions for a floor—then their vast, thatched gladewheat roofs began. Each narrow spire had a single triangularly-shaped gabled window inset in a pointed dormer enclosure.

Magda and Rook navigated between the towers, wending and weaving around their hulking architectural obstacles and fellow Freegladers. Fat raindrops splattered and hailstones bombarded the muddy earth around them. Rook shivered as Magda stopped under the awning shielding the entrance from the cruelly cascading downpour – narrowly avoiding a particularly nasty hailstone the size of an ironwood pinecone. When Magda was confident her father was far out of earshot, she finally looked at Rook and vented her frustrations, roughly throwing back the hood of her oilskin raincoat.

"It hurt. What my father said," Magda admitted somberly, the determined set of her jaw contrasted by a hopeful glimmer in her glossy viridescent eyes. She persevered through her melancholy and continued her confiding. "I'm coping with my guilt. I don't have time for the children. I haven't made the time, either."

"You've been busy helping me," Rook reminded her, a whisper of mirth defining his empathetic expression. His brightly glittering celeste eyes betrayed his romantic feelings for Magda. If she noticed, she never acknowledged it.

"Yes. You're important to me, Rook, but my family needs me. The children need to be cared for. Someone has to manage these things! Can you help us find more people—nannies, builders, assistance of that nature?"

"I love you," Rook blurted as a cart loudly shot past the Hive Huts, down the slippery cobbled thoroughfare to their east.

Magda stood frozen for a moment, thinking. On impulse, she pushed Rook against the wall outside the roundhouse. Her nimble hands deftly locked his wrists in place, upright, while she leaned in to kiss his mouth. It was a peck, and he hopelessly wished it would never end. Her hold on his hands relaxed as Rook felt Magda's hot breath on his reddened face.

"I don't know how I feel," she said coyly. "I need to think on it." She tenderly touched his soft beard before laughing delightedly. Rook's heart sank, like stormphrax in absolute darkness.

"Sky Above, I swear my father, the bloody skycur that he is, is crazy. He thinks he's so funny, so fucking clever," Magda complained. Her sing-song voice, devoid of its recent sadness, was a treat for Rook's ears, regardless of her disparaging comments.

"I like him. You shouldn't call him a skycur – he's your father," Rook chimed in.

"Of course you'd like him. I got my sense of humor from him. I'm a bad influence," she twittered prettily. "It rubbed off on you. Yours is just as filthy as mine."

"That's what Lytugg said to Hemtuft!" Rook quipped.

"That one was too easy, just like you," Magda chided, with a lascivious wink.

"No comment," Rook concluded with a rascal's grin, before entering the roundhouse of the welcoming Hive Huts, a place of respite and heat, free of charge for all patrons.

* * *

The instant Magda opened the front door a crack, she and Rook were greeted with an inviting assault of sensory stimulation. The first thing he noticed was the rare and faintly ferrous odor of burning copperwood, which produced a color similar to the half-light of the dreaded Twilight Woods, without the adverse side-effects that infernal place inflicted upon its hapless victims – immortality paired with insanity.

Rook's great-uncle Tem had stumbled into the Twilight Woods whilst stormchasing with Cloud Wolf and Twig. But, he was the only person to have ever escaped, according to the documentation at the Great Library. A 'deathcheater', they called him.

 _I need to see him_ , Rook thought sadly.

Copperwood was rarely used in braziers because of its favorable suitability for newer, more modern applications. In construction, it was becoming popular as a decorative wood. Copperwood helmets and armor plates were catching on in the armed forces, too.

Nobody would complain that the lumber was going to waste. A huge stand of copperwoods was located in the Northern Fringes, so they were quite plentiful in the Free Glades.

Rook thought of Uncle Tem again when he recalled how closely the copperwood coexisted with the bloodoak – the only other type of tree it didn't periodically harass. Uncle Tem had been used as bait for a bloodoak decades ago.

Still, despite that, the metallic odor of smoldering copperwood was a comparatively welcome break from the acrid stinkwood, a stench like a cross between pickled tripweed and rotting flesh, which most goblins preferred to use in their own homes.

The balmy air was thick with the astoundingly rich smells of countless Deepwoods delicacies and exotic beverages, from barkgrub sausages to grayleberry juice, filets of vicious gloamfish, pickled snowbird eggs, and explosively flavorful sallowdrop-delberry fruit smoothies.

Magda and Rook planned on getting a platter of crispy thousandfoot fritters to snack on and cloudtea to sip while they waited the few hours left until the Hive Hut's kitchen would serve dinner—crunchy gladegoose wings served with tart earthapple sauce and silvery cloudturnips, buttered to a heavenly degree. If anything, Rook could admit that today he had eaten well.

Switching over to the usage of their ocular perception, Magda and Rook spotted an absolutely massive pot in the center of the room—though puny compared to the one at the Refectory Chamber back in the lost city of Old Sanctaphrax. Suspended from the domed ceiling, the ginormous cauldron hung above a huge brazier, constantly stoked by half a dozen bellows and tended to by a skilled team of woodtrolls.

The cauldron and brazier were concentrically circled by three rows of ring-like bars fashioned from carved sugarpine, inlaid with blackwood accenting, depicting scenes of legend from the various goblin mythologies unique to each of the different tribes. Around the colossal bar counters were hundreds upon hundreds of individuals, sitting atop floating amber-colored varnished sumpwood barstools, the naturally warm seats bobbing up and down, secured by gently clinking chains.

Every single person in the hectic roundhouse of the Hive Huts had a unique story to tell and a life's history worth of experiences to share. In this demographically diverse social situation, all of the groups and factions of the Edge were represented. There were bookish academics, young and old, with mortarboard helms and black-and-white Marisian robes; laughing woodtrolls, with button-noses reddened by the freely flowing frothy woodale, red-faced slaughterers sharing anecdotes, and burly cloddertrog youths swapping bawdy tales in front of gorgeous, giggling fourthling girls – more than one took Rook's fancy.

There were members of the Armada of the Dead, a collection of scuppered sky ships embedded in the claggy, sucking mud of the bleached wasteland that was the Mire. The men of the Armada of the Dead were part of a dying breed – sky pirates, there were called. With no more skyflight due to stone-sickness, their job was no longer practical. They diversified and decided that the Free Glades had better prospects than their meager settlement. The sky pirates were garbed with elegantly tooled tilderleather breastplates and largely-defunct parawings, a formerly handy tool for abandoning ship constructed from lufwood and tilderskin.

Felix Lodd's Librarian Knights were present too, easy to spot in their green-and-orange flight-suits and copperwood armor – accompanied by the swagger they carried with them as they gossiped feverishly about the size of Xanth Filatine's hands. Rook felt a lump forming in his throat when he spotted his former brothers-in-arms—Freeglade Lancers, vibrant in flowing white surcoats emblazoned with red banderbear insignias and green-and-white checkerboard scarfs denoting that they were no longer cadets. Rook was not surprised to see the New Undertown Ghosts out in force, in their unsightly, bleached-white muglumpskin uniforms – though insulting their armor was unwise to do so in their presence.

Just then, Rook saw someone he knew. It was Captain Deadbolt Vulpoon's stone pilot, Stig Pradoxia, telling anyone and everyone about another crazy idea.

Magda and Rook walked from the front door to the periphery of the chamber and made their way towards the ring-shaped bar closest to the fire so that their wet clothes could dry.

Rook did not necessarily think that Stig Pradoxia was crazy. Stig just had a wild imagination. His shoulder-length blond hair was disheveled and knotted, his clear green eyes bloodshot from some intoxicating substance of some kind; most likely, Stig had taken a chunk of a rainbow glade mushroom or smoked some woodsalvia—a practice Rook disapproved of.

"I know him," Rook said to Magda whilst vaguely pointing towards Stig. "I'm curious to hear what he's saying. Can we sit over there?"

"I don't mind. Who, though? Where is he?" said Magda inquisitively.

"Just follow the sounds of booing and heckling," he responded with a yawn. "The fellow over there with the long hair."

"I don't see any long-haired goblins, Rook," she stated confusedly.

"No, he's a fourthling with long hair!" he snapped in irritation before checking himself. "I'm sorry for that…"

The next instant, a burst of guffaws erupted around Stig.

"Forget it, I see him."

When they saw Magda and Rook approaching them, many scooted out of the way to give their seats up for the living legends. A few shook hands with the couple, but none risked trying to kiss her hand – Magda was no damsel in distress and she certainly wasn't a delicate little leaf in the wind pining for chivalrous displays from gallant heroes.

"I don't know what you'll glean from Stig, but I think it's a waste of time," one of the sky pirates, a portly tusked goblin advised them, his yellowed tusks glinting in the half-light.

"Wait, fellas! Just hear me out here! I got one more idea, guys!" Stig slurred valiantly in acute inebriation.

"What is it this time, Stig? What the blazes do you want?!" a quartermaster with circular wire-rimmed spectacles and a greatcoat lined with black quarmskin querulously grumbled, pushing his sliding eyewear further up his hooked nose exasperatedly. "Are you going to ponder the shape of tilder-sausages or will you tell us all about how this life is but a fleeting dream?"

"No, it's a new one. It's good. I swear it, by Earth Below and Sky Above!" Stig implored.

"That fills me with such confidence," said a cloddertrog harpooner, in a booming voice that Rook reckoned could shatter windows and topple ironwoods.

Magda and Rook sat down on sumpwood stools beside Stig, the flames of the brazier dancing upon their ruddy cheeks—in the light, his beard seemed to change color, from the usual black to a shade of auburn. The lufwood sword miniature around his neck knocked against the bar. It was a family heirloom.

Those who were to join the Knights Academy back in Old Sanctaphrax had miniature portraits made, to be affixed to the pommels of their swords. In the miniature he carried with him, Rook saw his dashing great-grandfather, Quintinius Verginix; behind him, he picked out the familiar shapes of the Loftus Observatory and the Mistsifting Towers in the distance. Quint's indigo eyes bored into him, but Rook was used to it. The painted medallion, hung from a cord, comforted him—the visage didn't frighten him. An ancestor in ill-fitting and disintegrating armor was low on the list of Rook's biggest fears.

Much after becoming the famed sky pirate, 'Cloud Wolf', Quint gave his son, Twig, his sword as he faded away into Open Sky, disappearing into nothingness and becoming one with the Mother Storm. Twig had detached the portrait from the sword and stored it inside Keris's hammelhornskin waistcoat before he abandoned his daughter.

The painted medallion of Quint had finally fallen into Rook's hands when Uncle Tem produced it a few months back, after the war ended. After receiving the heirloom, Rook had decided to give the sword miniature necklace to his first child, regardless of gender. It seemed only proper to carry on his family's tradition.

A blast of explosive laughter smashed through his reminiscing like a ballista missile late for a lecture at Lake Landing.

"Mining _under the ground_ for stormphrax? Are you nuts? And even if it made sense, The Eastern Woods are way too close to the Twilight Woods for my liking!" the cloddertrog harpooner roared. "We don't have any massive cities in the sky to weigh down at the moment. But, I remember hearing about those years back when that Vilnix Pompolnius fellow was in charge – people were blowing themselves up just for a clean drink of water. I don't think we should experiment on something so sinister."

"But think of the power contained within stormphrax! If we could harness that power, imagine the possibilities!" Stig beseeched them. "Purifying water is woodalmonds compared to what it could achieve."

"Stig, you're drunk," the bespectacled quartermaster with the hooked nose said simply.

The cloddertrog harpooner laughed derisively.

"Bunk, I'm serious about this!" Stig snapped.

Bedraggled and drunk or not, his fervor was captivating. Rook listened attentively, waiting to hear more. _Tallix, boy._ _A noble name for a noble creature_ , a voice sibilated inside his head.

"I've heard enough hammelhorndung for today," the cloddertrog, Bunk, sighed before abandoning his woodale mug and exiting the Hive Huts.

Rook leaned over to whisper in Stig Pradoxia's ear.

"Come see me at the apothecary across the street tomorrow. We need help rebuilding and you can tell me all about your idea," Rook requested.

Then, he got up to sit elsewhere, nearer to the toasty brazier and the bevy of delicious scents it emitted; the plethora of smells invaded his nostrils.


	7. Chapter Seven -- The Rotsucker Talon

Magda excused herself from the bar and the crowd of rugged sky pirates politely before following after Rook. The men were conspicuous in their fancy black bicorn hats, peeking above the heads of other patrons.

As he sat down again at the second closest bar counter to the cauldron, Rook watched Magda's spectacular shape as she bounded towards him, fascinated by the almost imperceptible sashay in her step. Their powerful eyes met in the middle.

He wanted to feel Magda's skin on his fingertips, to kiss her lips a second time, to share the same bed with her. Rook yearned to meld with her soul and become as one, if only for a moment – dreamt or real. His provocative desires were bringing heat to his cheeks, but it felt so good.

Magda smiled, at ease amongst the loudness. The pommel of her sky pirate sword caught the light. Before sitting down next to Rook, she leaned over the bar to order the thousandfoot fritters and cloudtea from a passing waiter.

"That guy was crazy, huh?" Magda remarked.

The rest of the room seemed to blur, but Magda was superimposed in his vision. He watched the reflection of the gyrating flames in her woodmint-green eyes—the sounds of his surroundings were distorted. Mesmerized by the beautiful woman in his midst, Rook heard nothing she said. Rook realized this was because she hadn't said anything. Magda put her hand on Rook's and squeezed gently.

"I don't know. Sometimes he makes sense," Rook answered sleepily. "I was intrigued by what he had to say and I don't see what's so absurd about the idea he had today."

"He doesn't seem to be a particularly credible source of information, Rook," Magda chuckled dismissively.

"Well… You asked me to find some possible workers. I can hear more about his proposal while he helps us rebuild the shop."

"You cannot be serious. You want that guy over there, _Stig_ , to do construction – he's unfit for performing manual labor of any kind," Magda disdainfully snorted, her fierce eyes like a pair of emerald-green skullpeckers. "He'll probably show up after downing ten flagons of hyleflower mead, all filled to the fucking brim!"

For some reason, having a disagreement with Magda was excruciating for Rook. And, it didn't matter if the discord was over something trivial or a graver matter. Every time it happened, which was thankfully infrequently, his stomach would churn with anxiety for an infinitesimal moment.

 _She's right_ , Rook's mind sneered. _No, she's a conceited bitch_ , his darkest thoughts shrieked. These ponderings deeply troubled him and he was ashamed.

"I'm not going to capitulate on this," Rook stood his ground, his deep blue eyes scorching like molten cerulean globes while his furrowed brows arched like the lancet windows on the apothecary's top floor. "He'll be there and I'm going to hear him out!"

Before the meaningless rift between them widened, the cloudtea arrived. Rook was still affected from the kettle he had shared with Magda that morning, but he welcomed it all the same. Perhaps it would sooth his angst.

The server regretfully informed them that they were all out of thousandfoot fritters. Apparently, Rook's banderbear friends had come in earlier that day, loudly and vigorously yodeling in lament over Varis's death before they smelled the fritters frying. Though still somber, the banderbears quieted down and tucked in to their fried feast eagerly. They had just missed them.

"Blast," Rook cursed under his breath.

His anger was about the disagreement, about the lack of crunchy goodness, about Felix and the memorial. It was about not seeing the banderbears.

But, then he remembered that he was with Magda. Rook was fine – all of the other hammelhorndung arresting him was unimportant when she was right there beside him. His heart felt like the East Star glowing in the night sky, guiding wayward travelers on their expeditions, dazzlingly bright and afire. A beacon in the mist, dispelling the shadows of his doubts and demons – and he wasn't even skyfired yet.

The uncomfortably hot, humid steam coming from the cloudtea kettle wet his face, moisture beading on his unkempt, scraggly beard. _Gross_ , Rook realized. Drying his face with his sleeves like an ill-mannered young'un, he resolved to shave it off when he went up to his quarters. _Why can't I have a beard as nice as Wind Jackal's?_

The kettle and the two tall cups were stoneware, with black and silver dots and a rough texture. Though most denizens of the Edge drank their tea from small ceramic mugs, cloudtea was traditionally served in tall stone cups.

The reason behind the usage of the term, 'skyfired', to describe the intoxication brought on by the tea was an origin story that harkened back to the exhilarating days of the First Age of Flight – the age of sky ships, academics, leaguesmen, and sky pirates. Unscrupulous sky captains would dispose of subversive or treasonous crewmates and prisoners by fastening them to a log of buoyant wood—then, they would set it aflame and the log would fly up into Open Sky. The unfortunate victim would either die from the cold of High Sky or succumb to the fires and be burnt to a crisp. With leaguesmen, it had been said that simply displeasing them could result in skyfiring.

Turgesh Sykkant, the monster that he was, had formerly used his iconic whitecollar woodwolves instead. Rook fantasized about feeding the slaver to his own thralls. All this time after his parents' murders took place, he had forgiven the woodwolves themselves. The killings were in their nature and Sykkant had led them astray through physical abuse and starvation.

However, Rook still planned to eliminate the vicious beasts, with their murderous yellow eyes glinting like bloodlust in moonlight. Regardless of his nuanced position, he knew they were too dangerous to spare. Hopefully, Rook could make their deaths quick.

Rook knocked back an entire cup of scalding cloudtea in one swig and quickly refilled it with hedonistic glee. Savoring the piney taste and swishing it around in his mouth like an arrogant connoisseur, his head immediately felt hotter – like the sweet embrace of a banderbear or the delightful Magda's stellar smile.

His attention was again diverted from her by the intensification of his senses. The sad funeral dirge playing on a stage in the corner of the roundhouse flooded his ears and filled his heart with a hull-weight of despair, yet it also gave Rook energy born of self-defeating vengeance.

The white-hot torridity of the brazier permeated his skin like ironwood pinesap and the titanic quantity of delicious smells made his nose twitch.

Then, he zeroed in on the crowds. There were the fourthling girls again and Rook saw them kissing with the cloddertrog youths, their mugs of stinky tripweed beer left neglected. He looked away from the public displays of drunken affection in his presence, fleeting infatuations forgotten the next morning.

The Librarian Knights had challenged the sky pirates and Ghosts to a wildly competitive bout of darts, and the revelry and rivalry Rook witnessed lifted his spirits. The rambunctious deluge of celebration and unspeakable cursing made his head spin from the sheer volume of their words.

A group of spindlebugs sat behind Magda and Rook, trilling joyfully while chugging Tweezel's famous winesap. His heightened consciousness made their carousing seem like the greatest event in history.

Magda and Rook drank several more cups—too many—bringing on a protracted episode of uncontrollable laughter. She put her hand on his thigh, squeezing gently.

Surveying the roundhouse, Rook's vision blurred. He felt so excited and happy in the present and the surface of his skin felt so good, as if coated with an enchanted cordial. Rook's thigh felt particularly amazing, for obvious reasons. The fading scar on his breast from a poisoned arrow—shot by a blackwood bow, at the Foundry Glades—no longer throbbed as noticeably. Their skyfired, bloodshot eyes—like four blood-red stars twinkling—locked intensely for the briefest of moments. Magda moved her hand seductively up Rook's thigh.

Just then, a group of Librarians strode towards Rook, looks of pure hatred in their bitter eyes. One had a cruel serrated knife with a hooked tip, a rotsucker talon affixed to its pommel; the fourthling youth carrying the blade was presumably the ringleader of the scoundrels. The other members of his posse had thornwood batons with tilderskin-wrapped grips.

 _Cravens_ , Rook scornfully thought. _How in Sky did they smuggle their weapons inside?_

Rook stayed seated on the bobbing sumpwood stool as his accosters approached. He reached for the sheath of his Lancer's shortsword before tapping Magda on her shoulder.

"Sky Above," she whispered urgently, accompanied by a sharp intake of breath. "What the blazes do they want?"

"They're probably Praxilla's anti-Xanth thugs," he hissed back nervously, fear conveyed by his blue eyes, looking around constantly in paranoia—though, his worries this time around were not unfounded but very real, tangible threats.

Rook wanted to resolve the potential altercation as peacefully as possible – he and Magda were armed but far too inebriated to put up much of a formidable fight.

"We're blasted," Rook muttered. His heart pounded like a drum as fleeting images of his past killings flashed past.

As they came closer, their assailants closed in on them. Standing in front of the bar counter, surrounded by his cronies, the ringleader spoke.

"Hey, Barkwater, you subservient bastard!"

"Yes? What is it?" Rook patiently replied.

The other people in the roundhouse looked over but decided not to intervene. Interceding, they must've imagined, would only serve to escalate the already volatile situation.

"We need to have a little chat," the ringleader smirked. "Set you disloyal, disrespectful children straight."

Rook couldn't think of a response. _Children? He's the same age as us_!

"Smart boy, keeping quiet and listening to your betters. If you fools try anything, I will run you through personally."

Rook couldn't think of a positive outcome emerging from the encounter.

One of the thugs unwisely reached to grope Magda's chest. She flinched but didn't draw her curved sword from its scabbard—not yet, at least. Rook knew that she'd cut the uncouth imbecile's throat eventually – most likely after castrating him and his buddies. Bristling with rage, Rook wanted to shove his blade, sharp enough to shave with, through the guy's face but thought better of it. His aim wasn't to die. _It's her kill anyways_ , he conceded.

The thug molesting Magda spouted hateful remarks. "Xanth Filatine is a cowardly snake and anyone who stands with him is a treasonous barkslug!" He paused to throw Rook's mug across the roundhouse and took a large gulp from Magda's. "And, _girl_ , your neckline makes you look like a whore. It doesn't seem like practical protection in battle."

That was a bridge too far for Magda—slandering Parsimmon's protégé, on top of the unwanted sexual advance, were not things she tolerated on a regular basis. She snatched the assailant's hand roughly and bent it backwards at a painful-looking angle.

"What did you just say to me?" said Magda, sharply but calmly.

Grunting through the pain, the thug doubled down by repeating his earlier sentiment. "I said, you're a whore and your boyfriend, Xanth, is a traitor who'll get what's coming to him!" He spat in her face.

With that, Magda emotionlessly broke the rogue's wrist, a bone sticking out through his skin sickeningly before withdrawing her curved sword, an ancestral weapon from the Verginix family. It had been a gift from Rook. In one swift movement, Magda slashed the ruffian's throat open with her sky pirate cutlass and wiped the perverse sneer off of his smug face; it was the definition of a summary execution.

Warm blood sprayed everywhere, ruining the countertop. The stench was awful, like prowlgrin offal or the Tower of Night's prison.

In response, the ringleader struck out with his savage dagger as Rook was pulling out his shortsword. He stabbed Rook in his right shoulder blade, plunging the knife into him, to the hilt.

"You slimy lakescum," Rook hollered.

His shortsword slipped from his grasp as his arm went limp, clattering pitifully on the ground of the roundhouse. A wave of nausea washed over Rook as a copious quantity of blood spurted from his wound. As he collapsed to the ground, Rook saw the cloddertrog boys swarm the anti-Xanth gang. Ending the raucous brawl, the cloddertrogs flooded over them and relieved them of their weapons. Then, they began to stomp the scoundrels half to death before Magda dissuaded them from finishing the job. Rook slipped into unconsciousness for what seemed like an eternity.

"Rook! Oh, Rook!" Magda cried as she knelt down beside him. His eyes were scared and his lids grew heavy. He heard Magda let out a panicked shriek as his vision faded to black.

* * *

 **After this chapter break, the story begins to have some NSFW parts; both in this chapter and future ones.**

* * *

Rook groggily stirred from his unplanned nap after dark. Sitting up in the bed beside him was Magda, her hand intertwined in his. Before she realized he had woken, Magda turned to Rook and clutched his face in her bloody hands and gently pressed her full lips to his. For a long while, she caressed him tenderly, before finally getting up and closing the door to Rook's room behind her.

Once she was gone, Rook looked around the suite ponderously, bleary-eyed. His recollection of the past few hours were fuzzy, he realized. _There was a fight._ He tried to move his right arm, but it was rigid with bandages, crimson blotches bleeding through the dressings. Then, the shooting pain in his shoulder flared up, coming on with a vengeance. Rook's vision shook erratically, as if a shambling banderbear was stomping by him. It felt as if Magda had feathered him with poisoned arrows or acid-tipped crossbow bolts. The burning wouldn't abate, no matter how Rook positioned himself in the infernal feather bed.

"Fucking damn and blast!" growled Rook in agony. He considered calling out to Magda but decided that he could manage. Besides, he didn't want to disturb her sleep.

Atop a large snagwood dresser, positioned across from the four-poster bed, Rook could see a pile of his belongings. Some of his clothes were neatly folded. His bloodstained clothing was nowhere to be seen.

Rook blushed when he realized that somebody had unclothed him. Thankfully, he was wearing nightclothes. An old set, too small for his current size.

Next to the pile, he spotted a glass container of purplish woodsalvia balm; Rook also spied his tilderleather sketchbook full of his cherished artwork on barkpaper. His shortsword, within its sheath, was propped up against the wall.

He tried to sleep, but whatever rest he did get was fitful at best. Rook kept seeing the gurgling figure of the anti-Xanth ruffian; the foolish Librarian was clutching his throat in a vain attempt to staunch the blood leaking from his eviscerated neck. Then, the dripping blood from the sky pirate cutlass would fall on his face, waking him up.

 _Did we overreact? Did the war turn us into murderous fiends_? Rook fretted, grimacing with pain.

Then, he remembered his last resort. He shakily left the bed and walked over to the vessel of soothing woodsalvia balm, fragrant with notes of woodcamphor, bristleweed tea, and rainrosemary. He undressed, applied the medicine, and put a clean bandage over the terrible, jagged stab wound. The pain relented eventually as Rook leaned over the cabinet to support himself. He greatly appreciated the fleeting respite from the suffering.

Rook was about to put on a better fitting set of nightclothes, the periwinkle ones, when his mind wandered to Magda's kiss. His lust flared up.

Rook picked the sketchbook up from the counter and flipped through it for the second time that day – if it was in fact the same day. Rook sat on the bed and drew a disrobed Magda with his left hand – he was ambidextrous. After completing the picture, he ripped it from the book and slipped beneath the covers, sliding down until he was supine. He put his left hand between his legs with a lustful sigh.

As Rook breathed heavily while pleasuring himself, the cloudtea amplifying the experience, he fantasized all the while; he longed for the consummation of a romantic relationship with the magnificent girl sleeping in the other room. His hungry eyes traced the curve of her breasts and hips, tightening his erection as he did so.

Rook slowed his pace and used his right thumb and forefinger to stroke his left nipple. Lubricating fluid oozed down his shaft, warm and slippery. Rook slid his right hand to the discharge and used it to coat his erection and his nipple.

It was nirvana. He kept at it, panting and groaning in ecstasy. His body shivered and his legs shook. Rook finished, hot seed shooting forth in large quantities. After a few moments, his heart rate calmed and he sighed.

He threw off the soiled covers, but was disappointed. He thought masturbating would've eased his multitude of pains – from the physical to the emotional, but instead, Rook felt empty and alone.

To counter the hot flash coming on and to wash off, Rook dumped a bucket of ice-cold water on himself. Afterwards, Rook felt guilty, as if he had crossed a line or broken some unspoken rule. Drawing Magda like that and doing what he did seemed wrong to him. Rook relieved himself before lighting the fireplace.

He flung the shameful drawing into the inferno, watching the barkpaper blacken and curl up, like the talons of a rotsucker clutching its prey.

Inside a wardrobe of sorts, Rook found a clean quilt to sleep with – it was astonishingly comfortable, as expected with its snowbird feather stuffing.

Before turning in for the night, Rook recalled his earlier plans to shave his unruly beard once and for all. Using a brazen razor, he ineptly tried to tame his facial hair. Looking into the mirror above the washbasin, Rook noticed the conspicuously dark circles around his tired eyes.

Once his shaving was completed, he cropped his hair with trimming shears to eliminate stray curls and maintain a uniform length. Wiping his cheeks and scalp with a wet towel, Rook stumbled through putting on his periwinkle nightclothes. Soon afterwards, he clambered into bed and fell into a dreamless sleep—free from all of the aches and pains that the day had brought about—until the morning sun rose at dawn.

* * *

In the other room, Magda wasn't asleep. She doubted that she would get any that night, or ever again – not after what happened. Heavily-armed goons itching for a fight had tried to defile her and they had stabbed her beloved Rook. She was unaware of Rook's recent 'spiritual' activities and was instead wracked with concern for her wounded companion. "Oh, Rook," she tearfully uttered to herself while unsuccessfully trying to scrub off the blood in a basin. Magda had been at that for hours by that point.

"Please wake up. Rook, I don't know what to do… we killed someone! And, he wasn't a goblin marauder or a bandit! He was a bloody Librarian!"

She was unsure if killing a fellow Librarian for his transgressions was justified. _Did I slit his throat because he touched me_ , Magda contemplated, petrified about the future consequences resulting from the knife fight at the roundhouse. _Or, was it because of what he said – about me or Xanth? Maybe he did deserve it_.

An hour later, having given up on washing her hands, she peered out of the gabled dormer window of the hive tower. She looked down at her family's shop across the dirt path below. No light came from the lancet windows of the top floor, she observed while restlessly chewing a sprig of bitter woodsilphium.

"Tomorrow," she breathed, her words fogging the glass. "If Rook is up to it."

Magda turned around, her nightgown twirling through the air and catching the moonlight. Like the iridescence of midnight woodmoth wings. Her blond ringlets glinted ethereally, no longer collected into four thick braids like Varis – two in the front, two in the back. Instead, her hair was arranged behind her head into five roughly shoulder-length plaits, tied at the ends with red ribbons. Magda had also managed to create bangs to cover her forehead, which she self-consciously felt was too tall and was also blighted with a persistent pimple.

Magda was worried about Rook's health and the future. And so she left her bedchamber for the unlit hallway.

She crept into Rook's room with a tallow candle and sat in the corner, watching her handsome friend's chest rise and fall. Magda felt like she was intruding but stayed anyways. The room was filled with heady odors.

"Is this a prowlgrin roost?" she wondered in a murmured whisper, brimming with sarcastic gusto.

Her gorgeous green eyes trailed along the surface of Rook's chiseled face. _The blasted beard's gone_ , she thought with a smile. _Thank Sky he finally shaved off that obscene, objectionable abomination_! No wonder he looked so charming. In the flattering light of midnight, Rook looked so beautiful to Magda—she wanted to comfort him, to heal him, to run her nails through his thick, flint-black curls, to drown in his soft sapphire-blue eyes. Her desire sizzled for him.

She fell asleep in the uncomfortable chair, thinking about coupling with Rook, firmly held in his lithesome but strong arms. Magda wanted to make gentle love to him. These weren't wishes, just her idle inklings of a perfect world. A world without violence, where Rook was hers, forever and always. Fat chance of that happening in a place like the Edge.


	8. Chapter Eight -- A New Dawn

**i**

 **New Undertown Detective Bureau**

A few hours ago, the New Undertown Detective Bureau had learned of the death of a Librarian and the stabbing of a Freeglade Lancer, who was on extended leave.

A gang had attacked the Hive Huts earlier that night; the authorities discovered this when the squad of scoundrels had been hauled to the New Undertown Constabulary by a group of cloddertrog youths.

The ringleader of the thugs and one of his men were severely beaten but lucid enough to answer their questions. Once taken into custody, the prisoners had been transferred to the Detective Bureau.

Whilst Detective Arnix Vandavancx grilled the underling, Detectives Thadeus Jurix and Atreus Antillix had gone and canvassed the crime scene at the Hive Huts. Unfortunately, the patrons had dispersed; the customers had long since returned to their homes, their barracks, or their rooms.

All that remained were bloodstains and a fancy dagger. Still, the detectives knew that there had been plenty of witnesses to the crime that would likely testify if the Freeglades Council requested them to.

It was just before midnight when Jurix and Antillix returned to the New Undertown Constabulary. As they opened the door to the Detective Bureau, Vandavancx beckoned them over to a snagwood table to brief them on his findings.

"Thad. Atreus. Did you find anything?"

"No luck. The place was empty," Thadeus Jurix sighed. "Did the conscious underling open up to you?"

"Cracked like a snowbird egg," Arnix Vandavancx chuckled. "I got him to flip on the ringleader."

"What'd he give you?" asked Atreus Antillix anxiously, sitting down at the table with his fellow detectives. "We could use a break in this case."

"Here goes. The guy says he works for Praxilla Lodd," said Vandavancx.

"Shit," Antillix groaned.

"Yeah, that oozefish of a woman."

Praxilla Lodd, the cold and calculating leader of the insurgency, was the black-haired and blue-eyed second cousin to the late Varis Lodd. She'd been eluding the authorities for months, ever since Cancaresse at the Garden of Thoughts had pardoned Xanth Filatine during his Reckoning.

Before the exodus from Old Undertown, Praxilla was known by under-librarians as a bully whose cruelty knew no bounds. Yet, back then she had been shielded from consequences by her father, Roxio.

It was said that she had icy eyes that could kill a man, so terrifying and penetrating by their malevolent nature. The first person she'd murdered was a boy who had leered at her.

Praxilla had allegedly gouged out both of his eyes with her bare fingers before dumping his tortured body into a river of waste in the sewers below Undertown – one of the many dividing up that cesspool of misery and oppression.

Her gang of traitors was called the 'Free Glades Justice Guild', or 'FGJG' for short. The FGJG was responsible for treasonous espionage, political assassinations, and indiscriminate terrorist attacks; a favorite was firebombing packed taverns of civilians.

"Is that it? He's with the FGJG?" Antillix continued.

"Oh, we got more than that. A lot more," Vandavancx grinned. "He didn't have a location on Praxilla but he did give up the location of a FGJG safehouse!"

Antillix's eyes lit up as a smile played on his lips.

"Well? Go on," Jurix prompted.

"While you two were inspecting the Hive Huts, our constables raided the building. They uncovered a trove of intelligence. And get this; some of the files detailed a conspiracy to assassinate Cancaresse for her verdict on Xanth Filatine's Reckoning."

"Sky Above. It's escalating," gasped Antillix.

"Yeah, Atreus. They've moved up from calling for Xanth's death and killing minor political figures. Now, they want to eliminate a member of the Freeglades Council."

It was clear to Jurix that the insurgency was far more dangerous than anything he and his fellow detectives could've previously imagined.

"Okay, Arnix. That's good work," Jurix said. "So, what do we know about the ringleader?"

"Trae Hexatine, troublemaker through and through. A badly bruised rich boy, now a violent offender facing the noose."

Jurix knew the name. Hexatine was notorious for inciting violence and was a known lieutenant in service to Praxilla Lodd and the FGJG. Authorities suspected him of being the mastermind behind a recent spate of tavern firebombings. How he had managed to remain a Librarian for so long was a mystery to Jurix. Perhaps it was the influence that his wealthy family wielded.

"Hexatine?"

"Correct. He's been stewing in a hot interview room since he was brought in."

"If there's nothing else, Arnix, we're going to go and speak with him," Jurix said, getting up from the table with Antillix. "Hopefully, he can tell us where Praxilla is."

"That's everything."

As the detectives turned around and started walking down the hall, Vandavancx called after them.

"Thad," he said. They looked over their shoulders. "Good luck…"

The detectives resumed their journey, taking a right turn and opening the first door on the left.

The room was dimly lit with three chairs and a floating sumpwood table in the center. The suspect was in manacles. As Jurix looked at the suspect, he noticed beads of sweat dripping down Trae Hexatine's face. Hexatine glared at Jurix with contempt.

The detectives sat down at the table in the sweltering interview room opposite Hexatine. The claustrophobic chamber was a tight space, perfect for generating unease in suspects.

"Ah, Mr. Hexatine," Detective Jurix intoned. "Thank you for patiently waiting for us. Now, I believe you know what we want from you."

"Go fuck yourself," Hexatine snapped.

"Just tell us where Praxilla Lodd is and we'll let you go," Detective Antillix replied calmly. Antillix stared down the suspect with eyes of pure hate.

Hexatine said nothing. After a while, Antillix lost his patience and continued.

"Fine, don't say anything. Just listen. Fenbrus Lodd has stripped you of membership in the Librarians Academic," said Antillix. "Why would you risk it all for that cunt?"

"And, Mr. Hexatine, there are hundreds of witnesses placing you at the scene. And hundreds who saw you stab Rook Barkwater," Jurix warned. "You're done. Now, I can ask the Freeglades Council to grant you leniency and spare your worthless life—but only if you give us something in return."

Hexatine spat in the detective's face.

"Fuck you," Hexatine said.

Jurix produced a monogramed woodspidersilken handkerchief from his topcoat pocket. He wiped the spit from his face, unfazed by his misbehaving opponent's feeble assault.

"So that's how you want to play it, Mr. Hexatine?" said Jurix as he put the square cloth away.

"If you don't tell us, the Council will declare you guilty and you'll be hanged until dead – swinging from the gallows as an example to all terrorists," Antillix threatened. "That wouldn't help anyone now, would it?"

"Go ahead. You won't be able to save Xanth Filatine or Cancaresse from the Guild," Hexatine growled.

"I don't think so," Antillix snorted. "You overestimate your power, Mr. Hexatine. Do you think that Praxilla is coming to save you?"

"We're going to take the Free Glades back from you traitors!" Hexatine roared. "I'm expendable, so do your worst."

"You'll receive no clemency if you keep this up, Mr. Hexatine," said Jurix levelly. "No sensible Freeglader has sympathy for you and your kind, filthy insurgent scum such as you. Plotting the assassination of Xanth Filatine and Cancaresse, attempting to murder Rook Barkwater and Magda Burlix? Firebombing taverns?"

"If that's the cost of justice, so be it," Hexatine replied with an oily smile. "Those who stand with Xanth Filatine will get their reckoning. Starting with you, detective. If I get out of these restraints, I'll kill you whoresons and your families."

After many hours of unsuccessfully trying to get Hexatine to talk, the detectives were ready to pursue other avenues of investigation. Detective Jurix got up from his seat and opened the door of the interview room.

"Let's go, Atreus," Jurix said to Detective Antillix. "We'll be back, Mr. Hexatine. Count on it."

They left the hellish chamber. Once they were out of the room and out of earshot, Antillix turned to face him.

Antillix's eyes were aflame with anger. He wiped his brow and exhaled. The detectives were flagging as midnight retreated and the new day emerged. They'd been at it for hours and still Trae Hexatine remained unbroken.

"I don't think he's ever going to talk, Thad," Antillix sighed.

"If he doesn't give Praxilla up, he'll be executed," Jurix explained. "And if he's executed, he becomes a martyr for the FGJG. We need more leverage, Atreus."

* * *

 **ii**

 **The Hive Huts**

Magda woke up with a backache from the poor posture she had maintained as she slept in the corner of Rook's room. It was still before daybreak. As she looked at Rook's sleeping figure through the gloom, Magda recalled bits and pieces of her pleasant dreams the night before. Something had awoken inside her – long dormant until she had clapped eyes on Rook Barkwater, her kindred spirit, at midnight. But, she couldn't determine if her feelings were born of banal lust or true love.

In the dream, Magda had sat at the foot of Rook's bed back at the apartment, her legs spread. Rook had been naked, his muscled chest and shaft on full display.

He had locked eyes with her, his expression betraying his intensions, before entering her wetness. He had whispered her name as his erection slid deeper into her sex, their collective discharge making it effortless.

Rook had pulled her legs towards him, which she had wrapped around his waist. Locked in a lustful embrace, he had gently pleasured Magda; with every thrust, she had squeezed her nimble legs against him in trembling spasms.

Then, she had taken control of the situation as she mounted him. He sat against the headboard. Rook had groaned in satisfaction as their bodies slapped together. Maintaining a slow rhythm, Magda had used her hands on Rook's chest and shoulders for leverage while Rook met her movements with slight upward thrusts. To heighten his ecstasy, she had gyrated her hips. His hands slid up and down her sides. The two of them were practically silent, apart from their low breathing.

He had put his right index finger on her clitoris, rubbing it in circular motions. With his left hand, he pulled her face closer to kiss her. Magda's hair intermingled with Rook's as he orgasmed.

Magda had enjoyed her brief dream and wished it had lasted longer. Instead of Rook's fiery passion, she was greeted with soreness. Reminiscing about her steamy subconscious encouraged her to climb into bed with Rook. She wasn't planning on trying anything. Magda was not ready to take those sorts of steps with Rook – those actions would have to be confined to her roiling mind.

He was lying on his side so Magda put her arms around him, careful to avoid his wound, and spooned him, her warm breath comforting the nape of his neck. Her posture molded to the contours of his body. Magda wanted to squeal with excitement and happiness but didn't wish to disturb Rook's healing.

Magda fell asleep again and woke up when it was brightening outside the Hive Huts. She was pleased to find that her backache had disappeared and her introspective scrutiny had been deactivated – for how long was anyone's guess. As she hoped for her dearest Rook to stir, Magda passed the time by braiding his hair like the woodtrolls were wont to do. She cushioned him with her body to prevent him from tossing and turning as much. The repetitive activity calmed her tempestuous avalanche of emotionality.

* * *

When Rook finally woke up, he was surprised to feel the arms of someone else, serenading him with heat. He smelled the sweet fragrance of squabfruit cordial—Magda, Rook realized, instinctively stiffening. Just then, Rook was overwhelmed by an unexpected influx of soundless tears as the soul-rending pain from his shoulder wound returned, worse than ever. He shook in agony, alerting her to his predicament.

Magda thoughtfully rolled Rook onto his back and told him to wait there. She returned quickly with a vial of chalky gladepoppy milk. It tasted absolutely horrid but completely stamped out his suffering. His skin felt like it was vibrating as he floated away.

He dreamt of Praxilla Lodd. His childhood bully. Preying on innocent under-librarians in the sewers beneath Old Undertown. She was chasing him down a tunnel, woodwillow cane in hand.

Rook turned around just as the shadow got closer. Only its blue eyes were discernable. He yelped in the face of the incoming blow that never came. Suddenly, the shadow faded away, his subconscious instead transported to an open field. He could feel the blades of gladegrass beneath his feet; he could smell the gladegeraniums in full bloom. And, far in the distance, just out of reach, were his smiling parents.

"Rook," they susurrated.

* * *

 **iii**

 **Lake Landing**

Xanth Filatine's bedchamber door shook. He sat up with a jolt, looking over at the sleeping body of Zetta Effennix, observing the outline of her shape hidden by the bedsheet.

"In a minute," he called out. He wondered if he'd slept in late again.

"It's me. The High Master," the voice behind the door replied.

What's brought him here? He could've just summoned me, Xanth wondered.

Xanth pulled the bedchamber door open, still in his nightclothes.

"Yes?" he yawned before running his hand over his shaved scalp.

"Last night, the FGJG sent a squad to the Hive Huts," Parsimmon, the wise gnokgoblin, said. Xanth's heart began to pound. "They've stabbed Rook Barkwater."

"No. It can't be," murmured Xanth, his eyes filling with tears. "Oh no. This is my fault. I should've left after the war… For Rook to survive the war just to be killed in a bar fight?"

Parsimmon reached out for Xanth's hands. The kind High Master gazed at him with warm eyes. Though still ailing, Parsimmon looked far better than he had at the memorial service for Varis.

"He's alive. The wound was superficial and so he's healing up at the Hive Huts."

"Thank Earth and Sky!" Xanth bubbled. "When can I see him?"

"Soon, young man. Soon. You still have duties to attend to."

"Sir."

"Get dressed, Xanth, and meet me at the Great Lecture Theater. Once I get briefed by the New Undertown Constabulary, I'll let you see Magda and Rook."

With that, Parsimmon let go of Xanth's hands, collected his robes, and left the doorway.

Xanth turned around to see Zetta sitting up in bed. She looked concerned. He went over to her, knelt beside the bed, took her beautiful face in his hands, and kissed her lips. She relaxed.

"It'll be okay," she said, trying to comfort her upset lover.

Instead, Xanth broke down. Zetta put her arms around him and held him tight. As Xanth sobbed, she whispered soothingly.

"We'll be just fine…"


	9. Chapter Nine -- A Gentle Breeze

Magda and Ned walked down the snaking road that went through the Western Farmlands, back towards New Undertown in the north. On either side of them were vast fields of sour cabbage and glimmer-onions, rows of copperleaf hedges, and busy low-belly goblins working in the sun.

The bold calls of tiny woodwrens drowned out all other noises. Their loud birdsong mingled with the sound of the breeze ruffling the leaves of scattered scentwood trees which dotted the large tracts of cultivated farmland. As they crested a hill, the familiar shape of the Lufwood Tower came into view. A cool wind blew, taking the edge off the heat.

Father and daughter, each of them carried a basket full of medicinal supplies. Thanks to the bountiful harvest following the war, the Burlix family was just barely able to keep up with the casualties from the newest conflict. If their luck had been worse, bodies would've started to pile up.

To their left, underneath a small redoak, was a skritchwood bench shrouded in shadow. Ned pointed it out to Magda.

"I'm getting old," Ned said, wistful for days long since passed. "Maggie, let us sit for a spell."

He sat down on the bench, put his basket down on the dirt path, and patted the spot next to him.

"There's no rush. It's not like there's a war on or anything," she grumbled.

Nonetheless, she obeyed her father. Once seated, Magda rested her basket of healing plants on her lap. She inspected her freshly painted fingernails whilst waiting for her father to begin speaking. Finally, he broke the silence.

"Maggie," said Ned, placing his hand on her shoulder.

"Father. What is it?" Magda sighed, turning to face him.

"I wanted to apologize for how I treated you when you last brought Rook over."

"About time," she snapped.

"I know. And, I'm sorry," he acknowledged, nodding his head, his mouth forming a sad smile. "But, I had my reasons. I wanted to give you space after what happened that night."

"Fine," Magda relented, the redness fading from her cheeks.

"You still seem angry," Ned commented. "Is there anything else troubling you? That young man you killed, perhaps?"

"Yes, but not that pathetic excuse of a man. I don't mourn his passing. He made his choice when he betrayed his oath, spat on all of the values we stand for, and spilled the blood of innocents."

"You took a life without any feelings of remorse?"

"I knew you wouldn't understand," she spat, taking umbrage at what she perceived to be an incendiary insinuation.

"I'm not sure I like your tone, young lady."

She dug her nails into her basket in an effort to keep her voice down.

"I've never had the luxury of choice. You got to play with your medicines while I was sent off into the world above. Yet now, after all this time, you have the gall to judge me for defending myself?"

"That doesn't mean you shouldn't—"

"You have no idea what I've been through," Magda interrupted her father growlingly. "Sneaking through the Eastern Roost. Battlefields. Imprisonment and torture at the Tower of Night. You've never seen a shryke kill somebody just for meeting their gaze or chase gnokgoblins off of the Great Mire Road and into the Twilight Woods. Have you heard the screams of Librarians being executed? All of this happened while I was still a fucking _child_!"

As his brave, beautiful daughter listed off some of the many traumatic experiences in her short life, Ned silently cried. He wished he'd never broached that subject with Magda.

Her voice was thick with emotion. "You don't know what it's like to navigate the Deepwoods, injured and alone – fleeing from bloodthirsty shrykes and opportunistic predators. And right after I recovered—without letting me catch my breath—fate forced me to lead apprentices who'd never flown before to their deaths!"

"So pardon me for not giving a hammelhorn shit about that traitor," exclaimed Magda.

She was tearful but also shaking with unbridled rage. She no longer cared about keeping quiet anymore. Yet, when she met her father's eyes, her face crumpled. Ned tried to console his daughter, hugging her tightly to his chest. Magda's loud, gulping sobs—bottled up for so long—broke his heart.

* * *

When Magda had calmed down a bit, she told her father about her conflicted feelings for Rook. He had listened thoughtfully and agreed to stop bringing the subject up in jest. After a while, the subject moved to her fears for the future.

"If I courted with Rook, where would we go from there? Marriage… in this climate? A child born in a warzone?"

"I think that's quite a ways off," Ned chuckled.

"Yes," conceded Magda. "I suppose we do have more pressing concerns. I'm still shocked that one of our own ordered us killed. Praxilla… that monster."

"You shouldn't be surprised. The FGJG has already shown their willingness to murder their opposition and target blameless civilians. Their depravity knows no bounds."

"This isn't what I had imagined life in the Free Glades. As young'uns—cowering in the fetid sewers—we were always told that this place was a paradise, free of brutality and extrajudicial killings."

"They're in the minority, dear," Ned said. "Besides, you're no longer my little girl. You're a woman now. A warrior. You need to understand that this is the way things are in the world."

"Don't dismiss the threat, father," Magda fumed. "What was once a ragtag group of terrorists is now an organized militancy – which grows bolder by the minute! Headed by a Lodd!"

"Perhaps. But we mustn't be hasty."

"This has gone on for long enough, father. I don't need your help."

Ned scratched his head before responding. Magda produced a small sack of erlberry and tag-nut trail mix from her basket and began to snack on them.

"At least try to reason with her first."

"Good idea. It'll be _so_ easy to convince an insane, violent, and cruel extremist to lay down her weapons and give herself up."

"I see that I'm not going to be able to convince you to leave your spiteful path. Your mother can't say I never tried to reach you," Ned sighed. "Well, we should head back to town. There's not much we can do about the FGJG at the moment."

"You go on ahead," replied Magda half-heartedly. "I'm going to finish my food. Rook and I will come to the shop tomorrow morning with a construction crew."

"That's fine," Ned responded. He kissed his daughter's cheek before getting up to leave.

"I love you, father," Magda said, mouth full of salted nuts and dried berries.

"Give him my regards when you return to the Hive Huts. I'm so happy Rook is okay. Can't kill that boy easily, eh?"

"I'll do that."

Once her father was gone, she looked left to the Great Lake, staring at the skycraft departing from the New Great Library in the distance. To her right, she could see countless fishing coracles hunting the shoals of golden edgesalmon of North Lake.

And, at the tree-line far in front of her, she could see the burning blackroot fields. This was to deny the FGJG access to poisoned blowdarts. By destroying the plants, the insurgents could no longer dip their ammunition in deadly blackroot oil.

"Praxilla isn't as smart as she thinks," Magda smirked.

At the center of New Undertown, the Lufwood Tower's bell rung the hour. Then, she suddenly remembered something. She was going to be late for her weekly noontime meeting with the Professor of Darkness.


	10. Chapter Ten -- Work Experience

During the week that had followed the incident, Rook had been cooped up in the luxurious penthouse suit. In that time, Rook's wound worsened before beginning to heal. He regained his strength as he plotted his revenge against Praxilla Lodd and her gang of terrorists.

When Trae Hexatine had stabbed him, the knife had gone in deeply and had been twisted upon removal, making a mess of his flesh. It had taken a few hours for the pain to fully sink in.

He had stayed in bed for the first few days at Magda's recommendation, except for bathing or relieving himself. In those quiet hours, he had been caught in a haze of gladepoppy milk. She had been constantly by his bedside, monitoring his shoulder for signs of infection and keeping him company when he was lucid.

Magda's delightful presence had reinvigorated Rook – her grins like bandages, her giggles like tonics. He remembered the sensation of her warm fingers applying woodsalvia balm to his muscled shoulder. Once, he noticed how her lively green eyes absentmindedly lingered on his sculpted abdomen and the scar upon his breast.

Two detectives had come to see Magda and him, asking about the events of that fateful night and the leader of their attackers. Rook and her had told them all that they knew but he could tell that the investigators weren't quite satisfied with their answers.

Rook basked in the relaxing hot water of his lufwood tub, seasoned with various soothing herbs—such as sweet lavender and nibblick—that Magda had ground with mortar and pestle earlier.

He smiled as she crept into his thoughts again. He closed his eyes before he poured soapy water onto his curly black hair. In his daydream, Rook saw Magda delivering a speech to a crowd of newly minted Librarian Knights, the sunlight reflecting off of her over-the-shoulder braid.

His mind returned to the present. On a table next to the tub, Rook had a kettle of cloudtea. He didn't want it to grow tepid so he poured himself a cup. He sipped at his hot drink, sighing when the delicious flavors met his taste buds.

The tea warmed his chest. Rook sighed and began to mellow out. He rotated his right arm in its socket to check his range of motion. The shoulder was still a bit stiff, but Rook was now hale and hearty enough to help with the Burlix family repair their ruined shop.

Now, he was just hoping that Stig Pradoxia would come through for him. His new friend had stopped by the apothecary as instructed but was redirected to Rook's room at the Hive Huts.

During their meeting about the job, Stig had offered to bring some of his drinking buddies along. Rook had agreed immediately. Naturally, Magda was vexed by his decision but eventually gave in when her father had taken his side in the matter.

As he planned out the day ahead, Rook felt the effects of the cloudtea settle in. Soon, his body seemed as if it were floating on a puffy cloud of blissful euphoria, drifting through the sky. He envisioned himself as a vengeful gladehawk, swooping through the air at breakneck speeds towards his prey.

After draining the last cup of tea, Rook scrubbed his skin with a sponge until it was raw. Lastly, he used one final sloshing bucket of water to remove any remaining soap clinging to his wetly glistening light skin.

He dried himself off with a soft towel and got dressed. Rook pulled a frayed white gladecotton tunic over his head gingerly before putting on a pair of dusty brown trousers. He fastened the laces of his trusty boots and polished them to a gleaming oily sheen.

He heard a fist rapping against the door, interrupting his dressing. Outside the suite, Rook could hear vigorous chattering and he picked out Magda's honeyed, dulcet voice. He couldn't decipher their words, let alone the subject matter, inaudible over the din of fevered arguments and insults regarding each other's mothers.

He hurriedly laced up his boots and then opened the door. In the common area of their floor at the cowl-shaped Hive Huts, Rook saw a crowd of rough-looking characters puttering around aimlessly – Stig's friends, he presumed.

In front of him was Magda, her expression optimistic and her eyes flashing in the light. He was seduced just by looking at her. She looked remarkable. Her sartorial flair accentuated her figure. She projected an alluring aura – a positive attitude, bubbly personality, and confident bearing.

In her hair, Magda had placed a single pink oakcherry blossom. She was wearing a smart high-collared frilly black blouse with red stripes and voluminous cream-colored pants, which were billowing in the drafty breezes that cut right through the surrounding walls.

Pushing one of her curly blond bangs out of the way, she let out a loud, drowsy yawn as she began speaking. As he admired Magdalena Burlix in all of her splendor, he suddenly knew that their fates were inextricably linked forever.

"I just finished passing out gladerbills to the workers," Magda informed. "Also, your button's undone."

"Can your family afford the wages?" Rook asked hesitantly as he buttoned his trousers correctly.

"Their fees are very reasonable. Some people realize that apothecaries are valuable resources to the community, so we got a discounted offer. Stig came through for us after all. What did he say about his plans?"

"I didn't ask him about them when he came by to see me the day before last."

"Well, they're all waiting for us, Rook. Stig's back at the shop right now."

* * *

Briskly tramping over dirt pathways, the work crew maintained a steady pace as they zigzagged around the towering Hive Huts towards the apothecary. Gaggles of goblin young'uns played rough-and-tumble, traditionally a schoolyard wrestling game.

Rook and Magda walked hand-in-hand, matching each other's stride. Just the touch of her hand filled him with joy.

He thought of her indecisiveness regarding her feelings for him. She acted mildly flirtatious yet was reticent to go further than that. There was desire in her eyes, but she must've been uncomfortable with the prospect of a romantic entanglement with her best friend.

And, Rook was certain of another reason. She was still preoccupied with another boy, Tempestix Aferensis. Magda and he had been the best of friends since they were squalling babes. And later on, lovers. This we before Rook had even met her.

Rook was already over his previous relationship. At the end of the exodus from Old Undertown, he'd had drunken sex with a fellow Librarian Knight, Joelle Aventine. Her eyes were very green, her hair darker than night. Though Joelle had been the only girl he'd made love to, he hardly remembered the experience, and it never happened again.

It wasn't so easy for Magda to let Tempestix go. Sadly, he died from a muglump mauling during one of their annual migrations. The day Tempestix had died, Magda and him had been smoking woodsalvia laced with rainbow glade mushrooms in a cavern that abutted a punctured sewer pipe.

Lured by the acrid smoke, a muglump stumbled upon the couple, who were defenseless in their hallucinatory state. The beast had charged Tempestix and savaged him with its claws. The cowardly muglump had scarpered off when a group of Librarians had arrived, alerted by Magda's anguished screams.

Young love shattered by tragedy. She couldn't save him and he bled out in her arms. To that day, she blamed herself for his death.

Rook was startled from his thoughts when Magda shot out her arm to prevent him from crossing the cobbled street. A long line of Freeglade Lancers were fast approaching.

"Be careful!" she exclaimed.

"Sorry," he replied, his flushed cheeks burning a deep crimson.

She squeezed his hand as they waited for the mounted soldiers to pass them by. One of the Freeglade Lancers noticed Rook and said hello. It was one of his friends from the War for the Freeglades, a gnokgoblin named Grist.

Grist and the other soldiers were resplendent in loose-fitting white tunics emblazoned with red banderbear insignias and green-and-white checkerboard scarfs were tightly wound around their necks. Their arms and legs were protected by sumpwood plates painted a shiny silver, necks and cheeks by their distinctive helms. They carried massive ironwood lances with streaming pennons in their right hands, crescent-shaped shields with their lefts, and scabbards at their sides.

Even more impressive than their riders were prowlgrins of many different colors and temperaments—bright orange, pedigree gray, skewbald, and piebald. Affixed to their tilderleather bridles were their quintessential banderbear badges.

Rook looked at his comrades longingly as the last of the patrol disappeared around the corner. Magda felt desolate when she noticed his countenance from the corner of her eye.

"Come on," she said, squeezing his hand again.

He looked up at her. She smiled sweetly, taking his breath away. Together, they crossed the street and rejoined Stig's friends.

"Rook, how are you feeling?" asked Magda as the apothecary came into view.

"Just swell," he responded mirthfully. "A civil war is brewing and I can't hold a sword."

"Can you wield a hammer?"

"I think so."

When they got to the end of the street and reached the shop, Stig opened the front door for them. He cheerfully greeted Magda, Rook, and his burly friends as they each came through the doorway.

"Ned's upstairs. He's got tasks lined up for everyone," said Stig.

Magda, Rook, and the strong laborers—brogtrolls, lugtrolls, cloddertrogs, and hammerhead and flathead goblins—shuffled up the boarded steps whilst the staircase creaked alarmingly and threatened to buckle under all of their collective weight. They entered the bright hallway, where the workers fell in behind Magda, filing through the corridor to meet up with Ned.

The lancet windows of the third floor glowed in the warm and clear weather the Free Glades was being blessed with. Rook's gaze gravitated out of the windows and towards the sky, its indigo backdrop punctuated by stripes of wispy thin cloud, akin to the bushy black-and-white tail of a doe-eyed, adorable glorplemur. The view was picturesque and gladdened him, the enchanting sight a reminder that life was still beautiful and resilient in the face of chaotic anarchy.

At the end of the hall was Ned Burlix, sitting in a high-backed chair at the head of a long table, in a dim chamber that opened up considerably. The elegant table in the center of the room was made from smoke-colored leadwood.

The table was laden with lufwood rulers, towering sheaves of barkpaper blueprints stacked to preposterous heights, and freshly replenished inkwells. In an untidy jumble on the opposite end of the table from Ned were hammers, saws, buckets of plaster or paint, and paintbrushes. Leaned against the table were three ladders of suspicious integrity.

Waiting on his guests patiently, Ned looked almost majestic in the foreboding darkness, his genial face illuminated by a woodibex tallow candle – its blue flames flickering brightly in the shadowy light. His magnificently extravagant outfit consisted of a velvety black doublet with blue flowery accenting and ornamental epaulets complimented by a nondescript, but doubtlessly expensive, pair of nightspidersilken trousers.

Inside the vast, opulent living room, Rook observed thick licorice-colored woodsilk drapes blotting out all sunlight from entering the chamber. Magda threw them back, bathing the room in sunshine and revealing the vaulted ceiling above.

On pedestals to the sides of the windows were marble statues, male and female nudes interspersed at regular intervals. In precise arrangements, there were elegant, plush couches and lavish rugs, braziers and loveseats, barkscrollshelves and cabinets.

Ned had his hands clasped together against his lips before placing them against the surface of the leadwood dining table. He remained seated as the workers assembled their ranks for his appraisal.

"Welcome to our humble domicile, friends," Ned said. "Thank you for coming. We're gathered here today to get this pile of rubble up and running again."

Magda came around the table to her father and gave him a kiss on his cheek before returning to Rook's side.

"To start, we'll be working on the living quarters," stated Ned. "Today and tomorrow, we'll be repairing the walls of this floor. Mainly shoring up cracks and repainting surfaces. Some of us will attend to this chamber and others will be assigned to the bedrooms.

Ned pointed to Magda's door.

"The floor of my daughter's room collapsed so it needs to be replaced before we move on to the lower levels."

"About my bedchamber," interjected Magda. "I plan on remaining near the New Great Library, so I'm going to convert it into a tailoring workshop. I'll need help lugging the necessary equipment up the stairs."

"Aside from what my daughter said, once the top floor is in an acceptable condition, we'll need to see about the clinic," Ned explained. "Praxilla Lodd's band of murderers have sown discord and hurt many people. Their victims end up burned, shot with blowdarts, bludgeoned with clubs… a clinic is vital if we want to help these poor souls. The clinic is beset with problems. Its walls are crumbling, our medical supplies are nearly exhausted, and it lacks proper beds."

"Father, what about the apothecary?"

"That will have to come last, my dear. Are you men ready to get started?"

"Yeah," the work crew replied in unison.

And, with that, Magda and Rook strode over to a vessel of plaster placed upon the grayish leadwood table. She hefted the container onto her shoulder before following him to inspect the nearest cracked wall – adjacent to the leadwood dining table. As they kneeled down, he took a look at the damage. Surveying the carnage for herself, Magda knew that the task wouldn't take long. The simple solution was to apply plaster to the cracks, which were various in number but minor in nature.

"The paint's peeling, though," muttered Magda to herself.

After about half an hour, their first job was almost finished. As Rook went back and forth to replenish the appallingly pungent plaster bucket, Magda painstakingly plastered the wall. By the time he was sent to refill it for the last time, Rook was sweating buckets from the oppressive heat. He took off his shirt and wiped himself down with a rag.

Once his final trip was completed, he sat down cross-legged with a grunt of exertion and watched his beautiful companion work – entranced by the dazzling shimmer of her golden locks. As she applied the last bit of plaster to the wall, Magda turned her head slightly when she felt Rook's gaze fall upon her. Her eyes lit up as she devoured the sight of his bare chest and he blushed.

"I'm impressed," Rook remarked. He mopped at his sweaty brow.

"I'll paint it tomorrow. Stig offered to help," Magda lilted.

"What happened to your haughtiness?"

"Fuck off," she retorted without any sharpness. "Seeing as he showed up sober, perhaps I misjudged him."

"You did," he said before getting up from the ground and leaving to speak with Stig about his ambitious notions.

His sore knees were throbbing with exhaustion by this point as he went to look for the enigmatic stone pilot with the tantalizing entrepreneurial spirit. Rook exited the grand chamber and entered Cade's bedroom.

Magda's younger brother was nowhere to be seen. Ada, Esme, and Cade were away on a voyage to the Woodtroll Timber Yards to purchase cottonwood logs for beadboard wainscoting—they would be staying over at a neighbor's place for the time being as the repairs were carried out.

Inside the crowded bedchamber, Stig Pradoxia was applying blue paint to a largely unscathed wall. Rook tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention.

"Hey, Rook!" Stig greeted. "How's it coming along out there?"

"It's going pretty well for Magda and I, the others too," Rook answered. "I wanted to ask you about your stormphrax mining ideas. Perhaps you might be on to something special."

"Scarn Mendix, the quartermaster with the spectacles, was right. I was pretty drunk that night. I certainly smoked too much, too."

"But, you see, I don't think you were talking complete nonsense."

"I had a feeling you understood in the roundhouse," Stig said as he dragged two stools into place for the both of them to sit upon. "Come sit, Rook."

"Give me a second," Rook requested.

He found a carafe of fresh water and three glasses perched on a shelf. He decided to bring Magda one later. He filled two of them up to the brim before taking his seat opposite his friend. Taking a healthy gulp of water, the cool fluid washed away the dusty sensation tickling his throat.

"Okay, now I'm ready."

"Tell me," said Stig dreamily. "What do you know of stormphrax?"

Rook gathered his thoughts before responding.

"It's solid lightning – pure light and energy," Rook answered. "When turned into phraxdust, it can purify the most polluted of substances. In twilight, it weighs very little; in total darkness, a thimbleful weighs more than ten thousand ironwood pines. Stormphrax was used to keep Old Sanctaphrax from escaping its anchor chain. That's about all I know of the stuff."

"The point is the whole bit about stormphrax being 'pure light and energy'."

"Could you elaborate, Stig?"

"Well, think of it this way. If it is actually solid lightning, like all the academic tomes and children's stories posit, then the power contained within could be immeasurable!"

"How does mining come into the picture?" Rook asked.

"When the Knights Academic would go stormchasing, from Sanctaphrax all the way to the Twilight Woods, those bumbling fools would risk their minds to fates worse than death," Stig thoughtfully replied. "And, many times, when they finally made it there, the lightning bolt had already burrowed its way into the forest floor. However, it stands to reason that those solidified bolts of stormphrax are still there underneath the ground."

"Wouldn't miners risk insanity by toiling in the Twilight Woods?"

"That's the part I haven't figured out yet. But, now you've heard all there is I have to tell you. It's only a thought."

"I'll bet a million gladers that one day you or someone else will put those ideas into practice," Rook said as Stig finished painting. He bid his friend farewell before filling up the third glass.

Rook brought Magda a refreshing glass of water as she took her scheduled break. She was sitting down at the leadwood dining table, her expression solemn, and her mossy green eyes distant.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi," he repeated with a warm smile as he took the chair next to her.

They sat in silence for a while. Magda and Rook turned down the offer to accompany the laborers and Ned to the Hive Huts roundhouse for a dinner of roast snowbird.

Instead, they relaxed at the table and snacked on juicy sallowdrop fruits Rook had run out to purchase from a nearby peddler. Later on, Stig came to join them. Magda, always eager to win, proposed a game of Splinters – just the three of them, the wager a hundred gladers.

The gambling had gone on late into the night. They had cracked open three bottles of squabfruit cordial and mixed their drinks with grayleberry bitters and woodmint garnishes. The combination had tasted sublime and helped to take their mind off of the impending heat wave. Before Magda could beat Rook and Stig, though, they had already fallen asleep at the table, overcome with drunkenness and fatigue.

* * *

The next morning, Magda woke up early, many hours before Rook and Stig would stir or the workers would show up. She took a quick cold bath before changing her clothes.

From a large sack that she had brought with her from the Hive Huts, she threw together a suitable outfit of barkflaxen garments for the stiflingly hot day ahead of her – a yellow bandeau and short purple trousers. She had learned from her mistake from the previous day; manual labor in thick clothing during summertime was just tempting fate, hankering for a date with dehydration. Looking at herself in the mirror, Magda grinned vivaciously; she felt energized, sexy, and confident.

When Rook and Stig finally got up, they bathed and dressed before getting to work. Rook watched Magda—who looked so pretty—and Stig—who seemed happier than usual—as they began to paint the wall Rook and she had worked on the day before.

Until the other laborers arrived, he reinforced the shelves and cabinetry in Cade's bedchamber. Rook overhead Stig trying to convince Magda to listen to some of his jokes.

"Let's hear your household puns," Magda prompted Stig huffily, finally giving in. As she waited for him to start, she kept painting the wall white.

"Here goes. I was going to buy a dining table, but I tabled the discussion. I was going to install a shelf, but I shelved the plans. I was going to purchase a bed, but I had to put the idea to bed. I bought some expensive blinds once – I must have been blinded by greed!"

Magda buried her face in her hands at Stig's cringe-worthy puns she had agreed of her own volition to subject herself to. Yet, it just so happened to be her brand of humor. In the other room, Rook snickered at what he was hearing.

* * *

Over the next few days, Rook witnessed the building come to life again. The work crew had set about Magda's tentative workshop. Together, they set up the tools of Magda's newfound trade. The clinic's walls were mended, new beds were installed, and medical provisions were stockpiled. The apothecary was provided with a counter, shelves, a back room, and a new greenhouse. Room was set aside for Magda to sell her wares.

The Burlix family, excluding Magda, moved back into the building. Additionally, her sisters by marriage—Saresta, Kindra, and Mindia—came to stay with them along with all of Magda's nieces and nephews. Magda and Rook returned to the Hive Huts to plot their next moves.

* * *

 **The Free Glades Justice Guild Headquarters**

Praxilla Lodd looked out over the Great Lake from her lavish bedchamber, safe in her stronghold hidden amongst the cliffs above the western lakeshore. Her mood was dark, her thoughts sinister.

The rising heroine of the Free Glades was on her mind, Prax's primary competitor in the contest for public opinion. Her nostrils flared and her eyes burned whenever the Burlix girl was mentioned by her soldiers.

 _I want to ravage that little whore while that contemptible weakling, Barkwater, looks on!_


	11. Chapter Eleven -- Singing in the Rain

Three weeks after the memorial service for Varis Lodd, the prowlgrin Chinquix darted between two ancient ironwood pines, each covered in black moss and bark lichen. His surefooted hooves kicked up dust and pine needles in his wake.

Rook Barkwater, astride his loyal prowlgrin, shot past countless trees and shrubs. He'd missed these feelings—exhilaration and a sense of unimaginable speed. As he and Chinquix raced through the dark and shadowy Ironwood Glade, Rook felt enthusiastic about the day ahead of him. Rook had just finished his meeting with Captain Welt and Rembit Tag of the Freeglade Lancers and was on his way to gather Magda for a second walk through the Lakeside district.

They had summoned Rook to his former post, Scartree, in order to reunite him with Chinquix. While he and his mount had been separated, the skewbald prowlgrin had caused unending problems for the Third Roost, biting grooms and growling at the other war-beasts. Rembit Tag—the small but muscular gnokgoblin in charge of the entire organization's mounts—was at his wit's end from all of the complaints he'd received about Rook's prowlgrin. Though Rook was still on leave, Tag had decided to make an exception and allowed him to take Chinquix home with him.

Chinquix had been incredibly joyful when he saw Rook again. The skewbald prowlgrin had bounded towards him, tongue lolling, blue eyes fiercely glinting, raring for a fight with a glade-eater!

Rook ducked, narrowly avoiding a fallen gladebirch log. His adrenaline fired up, heightening his senses. The Ironwood Glade was alive with the comforting scent of wood, the spicy odor of pine needles, and the damp smell of wet tree bark. The air was filled with the birdsong of colorful woodteals and the squeals of a hungry flock of snickets. Rook lost himself in the experience that was the Deepwoods. The heady fragrances, the sounds of its various creatures, and its unspoken dangers.

He and Chinquix burst from the wooded glade and into the sunlight. Rook put his hand up to shield his eyes from the glare. Chinquix jumped a fence and landed on an unpaved path, which eventually took them to the lakeshore.

The skewbald prowlgrin galloped down the deserted Great Lake Ring Road. Rook had decided to avoid the numerous settlements between the Ironwood Glade and New Undertown by taking the westernmost avenue. Opting for the road that hugged the lakeshore instead of the bustling main supply route, Rook could bypass wains, pedestrians, Grey Goblins' Hearth, and the Woodtroll Timber Yards. He didn't want to keep Magda waiting, tapping her foot anxiously like she always did.

Rook heard voices coming from above him. He looked up. Standing on a high ridge to his right, a group of young'uns—three woodtrolls, two hammerheads, and a grey goblin—waved down to Rook.

"Whatever's up?" they called.

"On my way to see a girl!" answered Rook.

The children hooted and whistled. His throat was parched from the dusty air. Rook pulled at the reins, bringing Chinquix to a stop. He took out his water flask and took a long swig.

"So what are your names?" he said.

"I have the honor of being Rubble of Grey Goblins' Hearth. Pleased to make your acquaintance," the grey goblin young'un proudly declared, puffing out his chest.

"Likewise. And who is your friend?" Rook replied, pointing to the woodtroll boy next to the grey goblin.

"Birchtuft Scentchop! Wait… I know you," the woodtroll young'un said, recognition beginning to show in his beady stone-gray eyes. "You're Rook Barkwater!"

"The very same," he said and flashed them a dazzling smile.

"FREEGLADER!" the children saluted, their fists raised defiantly.

Rook unsheathed his sword and raised it in his right hand. He put his left hand to his chest, where his crimson banderbear badge used to be, and returned their salute. Then, he bid the boisterous young'uns farewell and continued on his way, northward to New Undertown in the distance.

Rook heard the sounds of wood-chopping and plank-sawing drifting from the Woodtroll Timber Yards. From the corner of his eye, Rook caught a glimpse of a purple flame shooting up into Open Sky.

 _Another funeral_ , he thought dejectedly. The fireball had been a pyre, constructed from buoyant scentwood and lufwood logs. _Another discarded axe and naming knife_.

Rook was familiar with woodtroll customs. At the funeral of Oakley Barkgruff's grandson—an apprentice who had died fighting under Magda's command during the Battle of the Great Library—the wizened craftsman had taught him the importance of each individual ceremony and tradition from his culture. That day, it was as if a pall of choking smoke had hung over the Free Glades.

It was a day of mourning – for their destroyed homes and businesses, for the young souls lost, for the extinguishing of a heroine. The Librarians Academic had picked through the ruins of their beacon, lamenting the knowledge that had been cruelly stolen by flame.

Magda took the death of the apprentices personally, foisting the blame upon herself and not their enemies. Rook had tried so hard to assuage her overwhelming sense of guilt. He never succeeded.

"What use am I if I can't help her?" Rook despaired. A tear formed but he blinked it away. Rook wanted to tear a Guardian in half with his bare fingers.

"Compose yourself!" Varis had said. "Take deep breaths, child…"

As Rook came to a fork in the road, he made a decision. One way would take him to the main supply route, which would lead directly to New Undertown… and Magda.

The other split off towards the Lake Landing Academy – a place of fond memories and Xanth Filatine. He _had_ to see Xanth. They had not spoken in over a moon and so much had happened in that time. Magda would forgive his tardiness, Rook knew.

* * *

Xanth Filatine sat at his desk in the Grand Lecture Theater of the Lake Landing Academy, daydreaming about the treatise he'd never had the chance to begin: _A Witnessing of the Hatching of a Caterbird from its Cocoon_.

As an apprentice, his leg had been crippled, preventing Xanth from setting out on his treatise voyage. Now that he had resigned from his post in the Librarian Knights, writing a treatise was futile, or so he thought.

Behind Xanth was a huge circular window, paneled with supportive ironwood bars, providing a breathtaking view of Great Lake and the Ironwood Glade. The baseboards of the walls were made from blackwood, whorls carved into their surfaces, while the floor of the lecture hall was comprised of polished lufwood planks.

Xanth flinched as a creaking noise interrupted his thoughts. The leadwood double-doors opened and a youth—with scraggly black hair and unmistakable blue eyes—stuck his head in. It was Rook! His best friend came into the lecture hall, splendid in a loose-fitting short-sleeved shirt which revealed his muscular arms. Like his shirt, his trousers were flowing, white, and made from gladecotton.

"Xanth!" said Rook.

"Rook! I've missed you terribly," said Xanth. He got up from his desk and crossed the room to wrap his dearest friend in a tight embrace. Then, they held hands and looked at each other. Xanth's dark purple eyes conveyed his internal struggles. Pain. Anxiety. Dread. Rook knew the look all too well.

"It brings joy to my heart to see your face, my friend," Rook said, his eyes watering. "Alive and well."

"By Sky, when I heard they'd hurt you, I—," Xanth started before Rook interjected, his voice warm and eyes full of concern. Hopefully, his reassurances would grant Xanth some peace.

"Magda and I are fine. You don't have to worry."

"I've been meaning to see you," Xanth explained tearfully. "I truly have."

"I understand. And, I imagine your duties, being apprenticed to the High Master himself, have taken up most of your time."

"I wanted to. But, Parsimmon never lets me leave this cursed building."

Rook squeezed Xanth's hands.

"He's been trying to keep you alive."

"Oh, Rook!" Xanth wailed. "Are _they_ right about me? Am I beyond redemption? Should I submit, sacrifice myself so that innocents might live on?"

"No, Xanth," Rook said. "You were just a child when Orbix Xaxis got his hands on you. Your actions were coerced and you made it right as best as you could considering the circumstances."

Rook hugged Xanth again. Rook was aware that Xanth's feelings of guilt would never wash away, but he would do his best to lessen the intensity.

"The FGJG is truly evil, not you. These insurgents disagree with Cancaresse's verdict and, instead of accepting the ruling, they take their anger out on innocent civilians," Rook quavered, his voice cracking with emotion. "I can't lose you, too. I need you safe. I need you here."

"I know, Rook. I know. But, this carnage is unfolding right outside my window. I can't just sit idly and watch, reclining in my chair and popping delberry bonbons."

Xanth's robes hung loosely upon his frail frame. It felt as if his red collar was strangling him. His barkfelt black vest seemed to weigh down on him like an ironwood flight-weight. He was in no state to fight. The torment Xanth was forced to endure on a daily basis had taken its toll on his body.

"In your condition—if you go out there like a fool—you won't survive the night," said Rook, his countenance pained. "And, should you be captured, you will die slowly. The stories about Praxilla's torturers are all true."

"You're right," said Xanth. "That doesn't make it any easier,"

"So, do you promise to remain here, at Lake Landing?"

"For now. But, please don't forget about me. Come back soon."

"I will," Rook promised. "And I'll bring Magda with me next time."

"Thank you, Rook," Xanth replied, sighing with relief and wiping his tears away. "Being apart from you has been a lonely existence. My only solace has been Zetta's comfort when she returns for the night."

"It will all be just fine."

"She said something similar."

"Keep her close," Rook said. He kissed Xanth on the cheek before letting go of his hands and turning to leave. Before Xanth could protest, Rook had already exited the lecture hall. It destroyed him to see his truest friend go.

* * *

Upon reaching New Undertown, Rook took a left turn at the intersection and circled round the Hive Huts. He dismounted near the shop and led Chinquix to a tether post beside the muddy path. By the entrance of the apothecary, Esme Burlix was washing the windows of the multistoried building.

"Good morning," said Rook.

"You're looking dapper today," Esme replied disarmingly. His cheeks burned and he looked down at his boots for a moment.

"Thank you," he said, adjusting his collar.

"I take it you've come for my sister then?"

"Yes. Though, is Cade in by any chance?"

"He's out with Furton and Kiet – down the tavern," said Esme, "and they're not expected back until supper."

Esme set her rag and pail of soapy water down on the windowsill. She leaned against the wall of the building and looked at Rook's prowlgrin fondly.

"While you're messing around with my sister," Esme winked, "could I take care of your prowlgrin for the day?"

"He's bred for war," warned Rook. "Are you sure you can handle a combat skewbald?"

"You forget… I ride prowlgrins in competitions, remember?"

"Right!"

"Besides, I have a date with my hammerhead friend, Tagg-Tug, at his village."

"Is he handsome?"

"Yes," she shyly responded. Her cheeks colored. "He has this tattoo of an angler on his arm. He says he fought it all by himself!"

"I'm sure he did. Okay, you can take him – Chinquix won't mind," Rook said, glowing with pride. He walked back to his skewbald prowlgrin and petted his flank. "Will you, boy?"

Chinquix snorted his approval and pawed at the muddy ground.

"Keep him tied up for now. I just need to change into my riding clothes and find my helmet."

Esme was down in no time at all, dressed in rugged riding gear. Her short auburn hair was hidden by her burnished copperwood helmet. She was carrying a double saddle. Rook was worried that the different saddle would cause chafing for Chinquix, but Esme had thought of that. A bottle of woodsalvia balm hung from her belt, perfect for combating saddle rash.

"Don't have too much fun," Rook teased as she rode off, headed south.

Rook walked into the shop, newly entitled: _Burlix's Herbalism and Raiment Store_. The apothecary buzzed with activity. The counters and shelves were polished and clean, fashioned from sturdy gnarlwood. Most members of the Burlix family were up and about, occupied with their duties.

At the bisected main counter, Rook saw that it was manned by Ada. She was in the middle of discussing the best remedies for toothaches with a goblin matron. Her baggy frock was stained with different ointments but Magda's mother either didn't notice or didn't care.

Ned was busy rustling around in a storeroom for some darkelm oil to give to a merchant for his prowlgrins. His customer was a crested webfoot goblin, heavy-set and with a bad cough. Magda had once told Rook that willow-peppers were excellent for treating congestion or spicing up a bland dish.

Behind the second half of the divided counter stood Magda, ramrod straight. She was absorbed with an engrossing task of some sort—like inspecting her stock of fabric swatches—and didn't even look up at Rook when he came through the door.

Magda frowned with concentration. She was alluring in a revealing, gossamer-thin, white summer dress comprised of a flared halter top, which bared her enticing midriff, and an embroidered miniskirt. Rook couldn't wait to talk to her.

Just then, Mindia Burlix, Milton's widow, came down the steps, her three young daughters in tow. She clung to the shawl of her sequined sari, which was rich with color and mesmerizing patterns. She had wavy black hair and eyes the color of woodalmonds. Mindia wore exquisite jewelry—a pair of intricate earrings, two necklaces, and too many rings to count—and carried an air of elegance about her.

As was customary, when she noticed Rook, he touched his heart with his left hand and lowered his head respectfully. Mindia nodded slightly, acknowledging his presence.

"Uncle Rook!" the young'uns said energetically, running towards Rook and clinging onto his legs. Mindia smiled, a rarity after the murder of her husband.

Aria was the youngest—at two years of age—with auburn hair like Milton and olive skin, an equal blend of dark and light. Fasma resembled her younger sister but was twice her senior.

The eldest of Magda's nieces was Seris, a precocious young girl wise beyond her years. She had handled the death of her father better than any other Burlix. Seris had the same green eyes as her father and the light brown complexion of her mother.

Seris was far more loquacious than Fasma and Aria combined, who usually kept silent until spoken to. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing – enthusiasm was in short supply and Rook needed positivity in his life.

Seris looked up at Rook with a playful grin.

"Seris, you're growing so fast," he said. "I can't pick you up anymore!"

"Mother tells us to eat our vegetables so that we can be big and strong like Varis," she proclaimed.

"Good. Listen to your mother."

"Uncle Rook, how many people did you kill in the war?" Fasma asked.

Rook didn't know how to answer her.

"Fasma! I've told you not to ask soldiers that question," Mindia scolded.

"I'm sorry, mother," Fasma mumbled, her lips quivering.

"Uncle Rook," said Seris, "can you take me with you to the Foundry Glades?"

"I don't know if I'll ever visit it again, Seris the Scamp," Rook admitted.

"Aw…," Seris sighed. "If you ever do, Sky willing, let me come along!"

"If Sky wills it."

"Yes," Seris agreed. "If Sky wills it."

"You'll do no such thing," Mindia chided.

Magda finally turned her attention to Rook and her family.

"Your mother is right, my dear," Magda concurred. "Now come—give your auntie a kiss!"

Seris and her little sisters came around the front counter and kissed their aunt's cheek. Then, Mindia collected her daughters and left for Waif Glen. _A wonderful choice_ , he thought. _Perhaps Cancaresse can ease the pain that Ada cannot_.

"Let's drink some cloudtea," Magda said sportively, by way of greeting.

"It's good to see you, too," Rook quipped.

Rook went behind the counter to brew a kettle. He never tired of getting skyfired and the refreshing drink tasted sublime. As Magda and Rook polished off the cloudtea, they discussed their favorite parts of their rather lackluster construction experience at unnecessary length, their intoxication leaving them prone to ramblings and pleasant giggling.

"Let's celebrate in the sunshine, Rook," Magda suggested sultrily.

Rook was eager to get outside, if only to enjoy her company. And to get a final answer to the most important question – whether she felt the same way about him. Rook was taken with Magda, quite simply love-struck. In his mind, he listed off the things he loved about Magda.

Sure, she had a curvaceous, voluptuous body. But, it was her contagious personality which stood out in particular. Magda moved through the world gracefully, an exemplar of poise and level-headedness. Her disposition was aplomb. She had a knack for commiseration—capable of making Rook see reason, consoling him in his darkest moments.

"Follow me," Magda said, taking Rook by the hand.

She opened the front door. As soon as they stepped out, they were hit with a blast of hot air.

"Sky Above," Rook exclaimed, "it's boiling out here!"

"This heatwave will be the death of us," she joked.

* * *

Magda's face was so close to Rook's that he could feel the heat of her breath and the minty smell that accompanied it. Her garnet lips, so enticing in his inebriated stupor. He inhaled. Her blond curls, kissed by honey, were fragrant with the perfumed scent of syrupy delberries.

Having entered the Lakeside district, Magda and Rook strolled along the waterside promenade, inhaling the fresh air of the Free Glades. The sweet smell of the previous night's rainfall pervaded their senses.

Lakeside was home to many taverns, which had included the Lufwood Inn until it was destroyed in the war. It was at that particular establishment where Rook's parents had first met, so the district had a special significance to him.

"It's so beautiful – the scent of rain, the sunshine, even the people who walk past us. I hate to recall that our reality for so many years was defined by the stench of shit and the absence of sunlight," said Magda.

Rook nodded but kept silent. He just wanted to listen to her musings.

"We paid for it in blood. My family did," Magda said wistfully. "I won't let Praxilla take this place from us."

Holding back tears, she made a suggestion.

"Rook, embrace this silence with me before it ends."

They stopped walking for a bit and used the copperwood railings for support. Faced away from North Lake, they watched their fellow citizens going about their days. Zetta Effennix ran into them.

She had dark skin, a very long braid behind her head, and bright purple eyes – which weren't as dark or as haunted as Xanth's. Her simple robes were stained with paints and dyes. She carried a supply box with her—at all times—full of painting supplies, and so she requested to paint the couple. Magda and Rook loved the idea and held poses patiently.

When Zetta was finished, she asked for permission to hang it up in her studio. The painting was gorgeous. She had put as much care into the backdrop as the portraits themselves. Magda and Rook instantly agreed. Zetta then had to go, dashing off to meet a friend at the notorious tavern, The Logworm's Rest. Once she left them, they continued walking down the road.

As they promenaded through the Lakeside district, the cool breeze ruffled Magda's dress, the wind lifting her hair like a feathered halo. They came across an art gallery, turning to look through its windows. Rook put his hand on Magda's slender waist, at the small of her back, inches above her lovely posterior. Inside the gallery, they could see oil paintings, signatures scrawled on their corners in flowery script. _Zetta Effennix_. _Blog One-Tusk_. _Tayva Aventine_.

The sun-kissed skin of Magda's exposed midriff was hot to the touch, so smooth and unblemished. Magda's fit abdomen was a benefit of her work with the ropes and sails of the _Woodmoth_.

Magda and Rook moved on from the artwork and passed by a bakery. The smells of flavorful barkcinnamon pastry twists, delectable woodpear tarts, and freshly-baked loaves of oakbread wafted towards them, setting their mouths to watering. Rook looked over at Magda, at his delightful companion, and felt a stirring in his breeches when the calming breeze pushed her sheer, translucent dress up against her body, outlining her shapely figure.

As Rook fantasized, warm, driving rain began. Rivulets of fat droplets coursed down their chests. Magda's sodden dress clung to her supple breasts like the hands of an inexperienced and eager lover. It was hard for Rook to resist the urge to leer at her cleavage. His lascivious stare went unnoticed.

"I love the way the warm rain feels on my skin," Magda began as they ambled further down the waterside avenue. Rook hung on to every word, riveted by the melodious nature of her speech. "Having our shop up and running, this soothing water, you beside me…"

She turned to her left to face him. Their illuminated eyes met—hers piercing and emerald, his striking and sapphire—betraying the smoldering lust they felt for each other in the moment. Her smile was like moonlight flickering off the waves of North Lake. Rook paused thoughtfully, hoping to formulate a witty remark or a poignant realization. Nothing came to mind. Slowly sliding his hand up and down her back, slick with raindrops, he sighed blissfully.

"Today's a good day. Don't you agree, Rook?"

"I do. I think this day will be the best day of our lives."

"Is that so?"

"Yes," said Rook as he crinkled his eyes in amusement and squeezed Magda closer to him. She blushed.

With a chuckle, he pushed some of her unruly strands of soaked hair behind her ear. He could feel her body, pressed up against him, start to relax. Her flushed face was the font of joy, her eyes bloodshot with cloudtea.

"I was hoping you'd say that," Magda confided. "I'm glad you feel the same about today… and other things…"

Without warning, she put her hands on the collar of his drenched tunic and pulled him in for a kiss. Her silky lips, the flavor of fresh earthapples in spring, lightly met his. One of her long golden tresses tickled his cheek. She placed her pliable left hand on the nape of his neck, her right on his breast. Rook instinctively held onto her bare, wet waist with both hands, rubbing his thumbs in circular motions against her skin. Her tongue swiftly slid into his mouth. The young couple softly moaned in their sweet moment of paradise.

Rook pulled away after a few seconds and gazed deeply into Magda's leafy eyes—an inexhaustible well of tenacity and wisdom behind them. He was in love. His heart raced, his stomach fluttered, his chest swelled with excitement. She leaned in again and barely nibbled on his neck, sending tingling shivers up and down his spine.

Rook closed his eyes. It was like being in a dream. The girl he loved had her mouth on his neck, hot rain cascaded down upon them, and he was skyfired out of his mind. He opened them again when she let go of him and her voice lit up his senses.

Magda began to hum the tune to a popular drinking song that was burning through the taverns of New Undertown, like a dagger through butter. It was song about skyfiring greedy merchants. Rook remembered the words and began to sing. She followed his lead and passionately joined in. Together, they belted out the words at the top of their lungs, unaware of the indignant glares passerby's shot at them.

 _What do we do with a skycursed leaguesman?  
_ _What do we do with a blasted leaguesman?  
_ _What do we do with a scurvy leaguesman?  
_ _Early in the morning!  
_ _Tie him to a log and set it afire!  
_ _Tie him to a log and set it afire!  
_ _Tie him to a log and set it afire!  
_ _Early in the morning!_

Suddenly, Magda put her strong, sturdy hands around Rook's waist, bodily lifted him off of the ground, and spun him through the air, round and round, down the waterside thoroughfare. He yelped in surprise. When she put him back down again, he gave her his most seductive look and locked lips with her once more.

As they crooned to the fluffy cumulus clouds far above them, Rook took Magda by the hand and twirled her around, the skirt of her dripping dress spinning like a windmill. As Magda and Rook pirouetted and twisted through the rain, they felt weightless and liberated. He felt as if he was flying through the clouds with the _Stormhornet_ again, in formation with the _Woodmoth_ and _Windhawk_. In a flourish of seamless movement, Rook leaned her back and kissed her neck lightly, then her chin, lips, nose, and forehead.

"Rook!" Magda said, suddenly marked by seriousness. Breathless with exertion, she spoke the three words he had always wanted her to utter to him: "I love you," sealed with a kiss.

"I love you too, Magda," Rook replied elatedly.

"I'm yours, now and always," Magda responded, enchanted by his enamoring gaze. She ran her fingers through his obsidian ringlets, lightly digging her nails into his scalp.

Magda and Rook were breezy and ebullient, bubbling with effervescent vigor. The cloudtea coursed through their veins like sweet squabfruit cordial, richer than treacle. The happy couple swayed in the downpour, hand in hand, side to side.

* * *

After a while, the rain petered out and their clothes began to dry. Just then, Magda saw an equipment locker attached to the wall of a popular hostel. Her carnal desire was sparked as she noted its lack of a padlock.

She beckoned to Rook, pointing out the storage closet to him. The look he gave her was priceless—the pure, unabashed adoration in his twinkling blue eyes.

"Rook," she purred. "Over here."

Once he walked up to her, she clutched his shirt and whispered into his ear. Rook's shaft pressed against his breeches as her intentions were revealed to him. His heart thrummed with anticipation. Then, she got on one knee and unfastened one of her knee-high boots. Magda removed her uncomfortably drenched sock, placed it on the door knob of the storage closet, and put her shoe back on. She opened the door to the equipment locker, found it empty, and pulled Rook inside.

Magda shut it behind them. The small space restricted their movements, forcing them closer to each other. The confines of the storage closet were dark as pitch, but were also more private. The absence of light was hardly an obstacle—his sense of touch was more than enough for him to enjoy Magda's body and to please her.

Rook kissed Magda's lips hard. In response, she pushed him against the back of the storage closet. Her left hand caressed his cheek. Her free hand traveled from his other cheek, slowly down his neck and chest, until it was resting on top of his pants.

With the back of her right hand, she rhythmically kneaded the front of his trousers with her knuckles. It was wet to the touch and came away sticky. His shaft hardened from her lovely contact.

Rook pulled away from Magda's mouth and began to lightly bite down on her neck. Sensations of ecstasy spread out over her skin. He navigated his hands down her back and pulled her skirt down slightly. Rook placed his palms on the soft skin of her rump and gently squeezed both cheeks. Magda let out a satisfied gasp at his lustful grip. As his gratification increased, so did the pressure exerted by his jaw.

"You're hurting me, you careless weezit!" Magda exclaimed.

Rook obediently stopped biting her neck. She tried to kiss him again, but—in the darkness—she missed. Instead, her nose hit him square in the eye.

"Ow," cried Rook.

"I'm so sorry," she said apologetically – but with a hint of a giggle.

They couldn't help themselves and broke out into hysterical laughter. After Magda and Rook had finished joking around, their lips rejoined and their tongues intertwined.

Magda slid her left hand under his tunic and rested it on his breast. She traced the line of his scar, the reminder of his brush with death. With her thumb and forefinger, she fondled his nipple. It stiffened at her touch.

Rook squeezed harder on her bum, sweet and velvety. Magda rubbed his dripping pantaloons faster. Feeling a rush of pleasure and exaltation, his body imperceptibly convulsed and he audibly groaned. His pants began to soak as a he climaxed shudderingly in hot spurts. Some of his seed had gotten on Magda's fingers so he licked them clean for her.

Rook pulled her top up but left it on. Magda held his head in her hands whilst he licked and sucked her bare breasts. He did this for a few minutes before he resumed kissing her mouth.

Rook put his hand down the front of her skirt and the silken underwear beneath and cupped her loins. He stroked her dripping wetness but didn't put his fingers inside of her—instead running them along the ridges of her inner lips. Magda gasped delightedly as his palm grazed against her quivering clitoris. He was gentle with his fingers but rougher with his palm. He kept rubbing her sex until she shook in orgasm while kissing his ear.

"Again," was Magda's whispered request after she recovered from her enjoyment. She sighed with bated breath.

After Rook pleased Magda twice more to completion, he was recharged and ready to go again. Magda loosened his breeches; she spat into her hand and put it down his trousers before wrapping it around his shaft tenderly. His erection pulsated in excitement. Groaning in unimaginable pleasure, Rook was struck by a hot flash.

Magda took her hand out and felt desperately for the strings of his trousers amidst the darkness. She found them, unlaced his breeches, and maneuvered his hard shaft through the opening. Using an underhand grip with her slippery hand, she touched Rook's erection slowly before gradually ratcheting up the pace. Soon, he was gasping and breathless.

Magda took her right hand into her mouth, retrieved more saliva, and brought it back to Rook's erection, mixing it in with his natural hot fluid. She squeezed harder and harder the further her hand moved up his shaft. Upon reaching his tip, she started from the beginning. Rook clutched Magda's free hand with his right. With his left hand, he held her right hand to help her finish him off faster. He eventually exploded, his seed squirting all over her skirt.

"Blast! That's going to leave a cursed stain," Magda swore.

Then, the pair clumsily exited the storage closet, their clothes ruffled, and grinned with satisfaction. Rook vowed to one day give Magda a good and proper knee-trembler she wouldn't soon forget. The two of them walked towards the copperwood railing of the Lakeside promenade and looked out into the distance.

"We should go for a swim – to wash off," said Magda as she shot Rook a wickedly sinful glance. Her visage was enrapturing—her luminous eyes drew attention to her delicate nose. Just then, without fair warning, she shoved him into North Lake.

"Magda Bur—" he yelled, interrupted by the water, as he realized what was happening to him.

She giggled before diving in after him gracefully, like a fish destined to swim freely. Once he reached the surface, Rook feigned red-faced anger – then, a wry smile plucked at the corners of his mouth. Before he could say anything more in response to her playfulness, Magda put a soft finger over his mouth to preemptively quieten him. With that, she gave him a sassy kiss. When she pulled away from Rook, he spontaneously splashed her full in the face. She laughed before retaliating with an even bigger volume of water.

* * *

After the pair had finished frolicking, their minds wandered towards more serious matters. The pair began to come down from their high as the cloudtea wore off. Now that the apothecary was functional, Magda and Rook could focus on eradicating the terrorists plaguing the Free Glades.

If the threat posed by Praxilla Lodd and the FGJG was neutralized, Rook would have time to search for his mentor, Varis. He was also compelled to avenge his parents, Shem and Keris, by eliminating the terrible fourthling slaver, Turgesh Sykkant, as well as Sykkant's illusive employer.

"What in Sky's name are we going to do about Praxilla?" Magda fretted as they swam in the sparkling waters of North Lake, as if she could read Rook's mind.

"We have to kill her," Rook responded listlessly. He was flooded with memories of Prax's relentless torment. Her sinister woodwillow cane. He wanted to see her horrified, bleak eyes as she realized she was bleeding out.

His thinking was that eliminating Praxilla Lodd would force the rest of her organization to surrender unconditionally. Magda thought that was wishful thinking – she fervently believed that each member of the FGJG was a mindless fanatic willing to martyr themselves for a hateful cause.

"Well, that goes without saying, Rook! How the blazes are we supposed to go about it? Praxilla never goes out anymore, so when and where would we hit her? A direct assault would be catastrophic."

"I don't have the answer," said Rook. "Perhaps we need to return to our apartment. To the Library. See our comrades, gather our forces."

"If only she could contract forest ague and shiver to death for us," Magda grumbled. Her eyes brimmed with tears. "That would be good."

Rook knew that her anger couldn't be cured with kisses alone.


End file.
